SOS Children's Villages has a 60-year history of helping orphaned and abandoned children. Some of our major milestones are provided below.
- 1949 - First SOS Children's Villages association founded in Austria and first SOS Children's Village built in Imst, Austria, by Hermann Gmeiner.
- 1955 - First SOS Youth House built in Innsbruck, Austria. SOS Children's Villages associations established in France, Germany and Italy.
- 1960 - SOS-Kinderdorf International established as the umbrella organization for all SOS Children's Villages associations. First activities in Latin America (Uruguay).
- 1963 - SOS Children's Villages began its work in Asia (South Korea and India).
- 1970 - First African SOS Children's Village built in Côte d'Ivoire. Further SOS Children's Villages projects in Ghana, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
- 1981 - Opening of the Hermann Gmeiner Academy in Innsbruck as a training centre for SOS staff from all over the world.
- 1991 - SOS Children's Villages in Czechoslovakia re-activated. First SOS Children's Villages in Poland and the Soviet Union, new projects in Bulgaria and Romania. Foundation of the first SOS Children's Village in the USA.
- 1995 - SOS-Kinderdorf International classified as an "NGO with consultative status (category II) with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations".
- 2002 - SOS-Kinderdorf International awarded the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world renowned humanitarian award, for extraordinary contributions towards alleviating human suffering.
- 2005 - Following the tsunami disaster in Asia, SOS Children's Villages provided emergency assistance (food, medicine, start-up grants and temporary shelter) as well as long-term support (reconstruction of family houses, family strengthening programs, community centres and SOS facilities) in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.
- 2007 - The 100th European SOS Children's Village opens in Valmiera, Latvia. The organization helps victims of natural distasters in Bolivia, Indonesia, Peru and Uruguay, as well as those displaced in the crisis-torn regions of Sudan, Chad and Somalia. SOS Children's Villages wins the OPEC Fund Award for Development.