Chile - Overview 

SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country

The successful SOS Children's Village work in Chile started in Concepción in 1965, when the first Chilean SOS Children's Village was established with the support of the Austrian couple Godofredo and Nora Stutzin,. Inadequate or even missing infrastructures in the immediate vicinity of the SOS Children's Village led to the creation of a considerable number of additional facilities in this area in the years to come, such as SOS Kindergartens, SOS Youth Facilities, SOS Technical Schools, an SOS Mother and Staff Training Centre as well as various SOS Social Centers. The number of SOS Children's Villages equally continued to grow in other areas of Chile, especially in the central region. By the end of the seventies there were already seven, and in the late nineties there were thirteen SOS Children's Villages in total. In 1994 the local associations, which to date had been responsible for the operation of the individual SOS Children's Villages, were integrated into a national SOS Children's Village Association.

In 1999 in Calama, a town with 120,000 inhabitants in the Atacama Desert in the centre of the mining engineering area, the first crisis intervention centre for temporary pedagogical and medical care of children in need was established. In the same year the first contacts were made with the authorities of Easter Island in order to improve the future opportunities of children and youths there. As an initial trust-building measure the island's secondary school was supported through the construction of a sports field and a facility for the physically challenged pupils of the school. Furthermore, youths are admitted and cared for in the SOS Youth Facilities on the mainland where they can complete a vocational training.

On February 27th, 2010 the coastal region of Chile was struck by a heavy earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richterskala. The SOS Children’s Villages Emergency Relief Program was started with a team of collaborators from different programs which settled in the city of Concepción. After having provided first aid intervention, various community centres were installed where shelter, food and clothing were provided. Apart from physiological needs the affected were also attended psychologically. Nowadays the different communities are organized well enough to be able to carry on the work in collaboration with national authorities and the support of SOS Children´s Villages.

The success of SOS Children's Villages in Chile is mainly due to the excellent collaboration between the state-run children's and youth welfare authorities (SENAME) and the SOS Children's Villages Chile.

At present there are fourteen SOS Children's Villages in operation, ten SOS Youth Facilities, one SOS Vocational Training Center and eleven SOS Social Centers.

Website of SOS Children's Villages Chile
(available in Spanish)