International Frameworks
SOS Children’s Villages is guided by important international frameworks in order to ensure a good standard of living for the children under the organisation’s care.
1. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
The convention was adopted by nearly every government throughout the world since 1989. It recognises that a caring and protective family are central to a child’s development. SOS Children’s Villages presents on the different territories, partners with governments to help them deliver on their obligations under the UNCRC.
2. The UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children
The UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children was adopted in 2009 and works towards ensuring that governments deliver on the child’s right to a family. The principle state that alternative care should provide to children a safe and stable family environment. The spirit of the Guidelines is in-built in SOS Children’s Villages care commitments through promoting parental care and prevent family separation.
3. The UN Sustainable Development Goals –‘Leave no one behind’
Adopted in 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals has been diffused throughout different countries reflections and strategies. SOS Children’s Villages has aligned its work around reducing inequalities towards vulnerable children and families’. Based on the pledge - ‘Leave no one behind’, the organisation focuses on improving access to quality education, strengthening youth employability and ending violence against children.
The objects of the organisation are related to the following Sustainable Development Goals:
- To provide accommodation in individual family units to abandoned and neglected children.
- To provide alternative families to abandoned and neglected children and those at risk of abandonment in community (pockets of poverty).
- To provide education, training and developmental activities to children and youth aiming at integration and self-reliance.