Child Sponsorship Background from Rawalpindi, Pakistan

SOS Children's Village Rawalpindi

In view of the dire situation of poor families and orphans in the district of Rawalpindi, SOS Children opened SOS Children's Village Rawalpindi in 1989. Former first lady of Pakistan Nusrat Bhutto was present at the opening ceremony.

The village is situated 10 km from the area of Rawalpindi Cantt.

The facility currently has 20 family houses (which offer a new home to up to 200 children), a village director's house, an aunts' house, a multi-purpose building, a mosque, and an administration and service area.

Other SOS Projects in Rawalpindi

An SOS Youth Home was also set up in 2000. It can take in around 50 teenage boys who are receiving vocational training or are in higher education. For the boys, this is the first step towards independence.

The SOS Children's Village places great importance on its contact with the neighbourhood, which is why an SOS School was opened in 1998. The school, which has 15 classrooms, provides education of a high standard to 300 SOS children as well as underprivileged children from the neighbouring communities. An SOS Social Centre opened in 2002 and now offers health advice to around 150 patients each month. It has five rooms.

An SOS Vocational Training Centre opened in 2000 and offers training for around 175 teenage boys. The boys, who receive training in subjects such as electrical engineering and car mechanics, come from the village itself, as well as from the surrounding communities.

Background to Rawalpindi

Rawalpindi is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan in Punjab province near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad. According to the national census, it is the 2nd most educated city in Pakistan after Islamabad. In the 1950s, Rawalpindi was smaller than Hyderabad and Multan, but the building of Islamabad in the 1960s boosted the city's economy, resulting in a tenfold increase in population, from 180,000 to over 2.1 million.