SOS Children's Village - A HOME for orphans

Our recent visit to the SOS Children's village, Bheemili, Visakhapatnam gave an idea about an ideal orphanage center. The concept of home and its importance in determining the overall development of the child is being well taken care of at SOS.

SOS has 140 children in the age group of 1 - 18 yrs at this village. They rear them with the help of 'Mothers' present at each home. There are 14 homes inside the village with each unit having a 'Mother' and 10 children. She has to take care of the children and maintain the home as the way we do at our home. Only the financial support is given by the SOS. Mothers are employees of SOS but they are almost permanent employees. SOS selects a person as a 'Mother' only if she has no children of her own and financially poor. Further, training is imparted to them before they take up the job at one of the SOS villages.

This appears to be a simple concept but the impetus lies in the concept of home. The village has a director (Mr Sam) and his supporting staff like accountant, and counselor. We were taken around the village by Mr. Murthy, an energetic person working at the village since its inception in 1996. We were told that they maintain four files for each child present in the village viz - File relating the history of the child before he joins SOS, Educational file, Medical file, and Sponsor's file. We visited a home called 'Asha Jyothi' and spoke to the Mother and some children. We could see the complete home environment - The mother was busy preparing a sweet for celebrating birthday of one of her children with active help from them. They maintain their own small garden and share the daily chores.

The village has a kindergarten with two teachers and we were delighted by the small yet well maintained class rooms with kids enjoying there. The SOS allows kids into their kindergarten from the local poor families also.

Some of the children from the village are pursuing their B.Tech, M.Tech or even MBBS. For them, the identity still rests with the home that they lived as they visit their home during their holidays. We were told that the village takes care of a girl child still she gets married.

The 10 acre campus has a salubrious weather for the children to grow in a home environment. We hardly felt it was an orphanage rather it appeared as a community setup taking care of the disadvantaged and needy children making them feel at home.