Chairman Word
A Word from our Chairman
Since the establishment of SOS Children's Villages Jordan in 1983, we have been providing family-like care for children and youth who lack parental care to surround them with the warmth and love of a family, where they have a mother, brothers and sisters whom they can build memories with, and share moments that will form a beautiful childhood to remember when they grow up.
Today, as part of our ambitious strategy in SOS Children's Villages Jordan, we are proud to have launched several programmes and projects that helped expand the base of services we provide for children, youth, caregivers and the surrounding community. In the beginning of 2022, we established “Malath” the safe houses program, which serves abused women and their children, through which many psychological, health and legal services are provided in addition to economic empowerment. We also established the “Small Group Houses” Project that delivers integrated care for biological siblings deriving from broken families. This project works to reunite siblings in one house and surround them with the needed care and family atmosphere. Another accomplishment of the current year was to implement the community house model, which is a leading model of alternative care and the first of its kind in Jordan. This model aligns with internationally acknowledged best practices and with the concept of deinstitutionalization, where family houses are transferred from inside the village into the local community in order to enhance the process of community integration for children, where they can interact and play with their peers in the neighborhood in which they live and help them form friendships outside the village zone.
We strongly believe in the importance of achieving environmental and economic sustainability, and as part of our continuous efforts in delivering on that mandate, we are working to develop and implement a transformative strategy for establishing resource-efficient and low-carbon green villages, and we have already launched several environmental projects within the villages as well as economic empowerment projects for the local community where women are able to generate their own income, provide decent living conditions, and stay with their children.
As a national association, we work within the Guidelines for the alternative care of children and The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and central to our work and strategy are the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, where our work aligns to achieve the greatest impact for children and young people.
When it comes to children’s rights, we work on the key issues of children and youth through advocacy efforts to ensure that they obtain their rights. We believe in the importance of building and developing their capabilities to secure their future and lead successful lives. We seek to equip them with tailored programmes that meet their needs and align with their personal aspirations, ambitions, and job opportunities. We are proud of many inspiring success stories, and the participation of SOS Children’s Villages Jordan’s youth in the International Youth Alliance, and many conferences and activities at the international level of SOS Children’s Villages global federation.
Our success is backed by the distinguished partnerships that we have established throughout our journey with many national governmental and non-governmental institutions, companies, NGOs and community-based organizations, and we would not be where we are today without their support and cooperation. Not to forget the tremendous contribution of individual donors, whose support has been vital to providing excellent alternative family-like care services for children and youth that enables them to build a secure and stable future for themselves and their families, the most important of which are education, empowerment and employment.
As we look forward to a thriving future, we celebrate our past and our history, where SOS Children’s Village International was founded more than seventy years ago, and was established in Jordan more than thirty years ago. We remember when the first children’s village opened its doors in Amman in 1987 by His Majesty the late King Hussein bin Talal, may his soul rest in peace, and Her Majesty Queen Noor Al Hussein, the Honorary President of the Association. Today, the Association has three villages located to cover Jordan from the North to the South in Irbid, Amman and Aqaba, in addition to youth houses and community houses outside the villages, and we continue to deliver family-like care for children and youth who lack parental support up to the age of 23 to help them stand on their feet and become independent. The alternative family-like care model in SOS Children's Villages is distinctive by the integrated services we present to the children and youth where they are granted care, accommodation, education & skills, protection & social inclusion, food security, physical health, livelihood, and social & emotional wellbeing.
Our vision is to secure a warm home for every child who has lost parental care, and we look forward with all determination to sustain our work with our partners, our supporters, and everyone who believes in the importance of uniting all efforts to support those who have lost parental care, and give them a safe and happy life and hope for a prosperous and stable future.
Eng. Mustafa Abdullatif AlWishah