Capital: Amman
Area: 89,213 km²
Population: 5.76 million (July 2005)
Ethnic groups: Arab, Circassian
Official language(s): Arabic
Religion(s): Sunni Muslim, Christian
Currency: 1 Jordanian dinar = 1,000 fils

SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country

In 1982, after a meeting between Hermann Gmeiner, Bruno Kreisky (the former Austrian Chancellor) and Queen Noor Al-Hussein, the decision was made to build an SOS Children's Village in Jordan which would provide long term care to Jordanian children. In 1983, an agreement was signed with the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development to approve the work of SOS Children's Villages in the country and a year later, with the blessing of King Hussein, the SOS Children's Village Association of Jordan was founded.

In May 1986, the first SOS Children's Village, in Amman, welcomed children into its twelve family houses. To help the orphaned children feel part of the wider community, SOS Kindergarten Amman also admitted children from outside the children's village.

In 1991, a second SOS Children's Village was built in the harbour town Aqaba in the south of the country to accommodate more Jordanian orphans. In 1993 the first SOS Youth Facility was opened in Amman to accommodate boys aged fourteen and over. A third SOS Children's Village was then built in Irbid, in the north of the country. This village has twelve family houses and was built as part of SOS Children's Villages' 50th Anniversary.

Extra buildings have been rented and turned into youth houses and now there is a total of four SOS Youth Facilities in Jordan: two for boys in Amman; and two for girls, one in Amman, and the other in Irbid which is used to accommodate girls graduating from the Aqaba village.

At present there are in Jordan three SOS Children's Villages, two SOS Youth Facilities, two SOS Kindergartens and one SOS Mother and Staff Training Centre .

Website of SOS Children's Villages Jordan
(available in English and Arab)