February 6 – 12
World Orphan Week
Every day, children lose their parents because of war, natural disaster, poverty, and disease. Today there are 17 million orphans in the world.
World Orphan Week (WOW) began in 2005 to raise awareness of the needs of orphaned and abandoned children around the world, and to inspire and activate volunteers to raise funds for vital programs that can support these children.
For more information, visit http://www.wowus.org/about
Orphans - what do we mean?
In reality, different people understand different things by the term "orphan", and there is no one clear definition.
For example, the US Immigration Department describes an orphan as being a ‘child under the age of 16, who has lost the care of both parents’, which also includes abandoned children and those separated from their parents by Court Order. UNICEF, on the other hand, defines an orphan as any child up to 18 of whom one parent has died and uses the unusual term "double orphan" to indicate a child, in those cases where both parents have died. This makes the quoted number of orphans high and under this definition, children who are often no more at risk than children in single parent families are included as orphans.
SOS Children Villages in Pakistan
The charity began working in Pakistan in 1977 when the first community was built in Lahore. Today, this SOS Children's community is considered a model for modern child care in Pakistan. It has sixteen family houses and a youth house for the older children where they can take their first guided steps towards independence. Despite concerted efforts by the government, the illiteracy rate in Pakistan remains high at 60 per cent, and in 1989 an SOS School for 1500 nursery, primary and secondary school pupils was opened at Lahore. An SOS Medical Centre provides dental treatment for over 1000 patients a year from the local community.
The charity established a second community in Dhodial in the small town of Masehra in northern Pakistan in 1982. The third charity site in Rawalpindi opened in 1989.
SOS Children's Karachi community opened in 1987 and there is now a youth house along with the original fifteen family houses, with training opportunities to become an electrician or plumber provided in the SOS Vocational Training Centre. The SOS School in Karachi is the largest in Pakistan with room for 1200 pupils, receiving pre-school, primary and secondary education.
SOS Children's Sargodha community opened in 1995. It has fourteen family houses and accommodation for 40 older boys in the youth house an School with 35 classrooms and three science and computer laboratories provides pre-school, primary and secondary education for 1000 pupils.
For more information, visit: http://www.sos.org.pk/index.php