About SOS Children

SOS Children is a worldwide children's charity. We care for vulnerable children in over a hundred countries. We run SOS Children's Villages for some of the poorest children who have no parental care. In a children's village, children live in a family home with a loving mother. Many of these villages are run alongside medical centres, nurseries and schools, which aim to give children in the community the help needed to get a good start in life. We also run family strengthening programmes, sometimes known as social centres, which help children and families in the community stay together.

You can find out more by visiting our main website about SOS Children's work.

Volunteering

If you have medical qualifications and around six months or more to give, we would very much like to hear from you. Usually, the final decision lies with the country itself, but many of our locations are short of medical skills and would be very glad of the support.

Fundraising

Medical and social centres are expensive to run, and we would be delighted if you would like to help raise money for the ongoing cost of keeping them in action. If you wish, we can make sure your contribution is sent to a given centre. Our audit structure is designed to ensure that all our donors' money is wisely spent. We do however ask donors to consider a few things when considering their contribution:

• Please remember that detailed instructions on how your money should be spent are costly to implement. The more restrictions you include, the more work we have to do to ensure your requests are carried out fully. Unfortunately, this means we occasionally have to refuse donations which come with strict conditions. We need your help, but we also need the freedom to allocate our donors' money to wherever help is most needed. This is the most cost-effective way for us to help the children in our care.
• We would also be grateful if you could speak to us before donating anything other than money. We receive many kind offers of equipment, but unless it is specifically required in a particular location, shipping and taxation can make it more costly than purchasing it second-hand in the country itself.
• You are welcome to sponsor a specific centre. But to keep admin and accounting costs low, your contribution will be distributed across all the projects we are running at a given location. The money you donate to us could be spent on medical centres, clinics, social centres, AIDS orphan community programmes, schools, children's villages, vocational training centres and any other projects we are operating. We hope you understand that this is the best way to help the children we support.

We know you may have your heart set on a particular project in a particular area. All we would ask is that you consider the practicalities of financing our work. Our administration costs are below £1 per sponsor per month. We are proud of our low admin spend and are pleased that the rest of your money can go towards helping the children we look after. We hope you will understand that we truly value the freedom that this allows us to help improve children's lives.

Direct debit is the best way to help our children, and it is quick and easy to set up a sponsorship using our online form. Please use the box provided for any special instructions on what you would like us to do with your money.

If you would like to fundraise at your school, please feel free to get in touch with us to discuss practicalities.