SOS Children’s Villages, which raises AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children in 132 countries, is committed to maintaining supportive and healthy environments that reduce the vulnerability of children and their caregivers to HIV infection. SOS treats children orphaned by AIDS with the same love and respect it shows each and every child under its care. SOS also has longstanding programs to educate local families about HIV prevention and the need for the community to support children directly or indirectly affected by AIDS.
- As of 2010, there are now an estimated 33.4 million people living with HIV, including 2.1 million children under the age of 15.
- More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since cases of it were first reported in 1981.
97 percent of those with HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- live in low- and middle-income countries.
- Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest concentration of people with HIV/AIDS, with an estimated 22.4 million people infected.
- By the end of 2010, nearly 18 million children will have lost one/both parents to AIDS.
In developing and transitional countries, 9.5 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 4 million (42%) are receiving the drugs.
- Less than 10% of children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS receive some kind of public support.
AIDS in Africa
- 9 out of 10 children living with HIV/AIDS are African.
- 8 of every 10 children that have lost parents to AIDS are African.
- Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 24 out of the 25 countries with highest levels of HIV prevalence.
- In many African countries, the number of AIDS orphans comprises at least half of the total number of orphans in the country.
- SOS has projects helping more than a hundred thousand African children orphaned by AIDS in 45 African countries.
AIDS in the United States
- There are more than one million people living with HIV and AIDS in America and around a fifth of these are unaware of their infection.
- An estimated 200 children are born with HIV in the U.S. each year, and many more children enter the foster care system after losing parents to the virus.
- SOS has 3 Children’s Villages in the United States and is home to more than 240 children.
SOS Children's Cares for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS
- Testing for HIV is never used as a pre-condition for admission to SOS Children’s Villages and other programs. If known, HIV status is not a decisive admission criterion.
- At SOS Children’s Villages, we believe that a child’s development is best supported in a family environment, and do our best to keep siblings together. Our programs enable children to grow up in a caring family, have equal access to education and other essential services, and be protected against stigma and discrimination.
- SOS Children’s Villages aims to promote the prevention of mother-to-child transmission through increased access to information, voluntary counseling-and-testing, safe maternal health services, access to antiretroviral therapy, and breastfeeding counseling.
Every day, SOS is building awareness in communities in order to prevent new infections, but also to address the toll this deadly disease has taken on children and families. With the death of so many parents and workers, the typical families left behind are child-, sibling-, and grandparent-headed households, while the labor market disintegrates. SOS has adopted a six-objective framework for action against HIV/AIDS:
- Awareness-building and prevention in all SOS Children's Village facilities
- Counseling and testing in our medical centers and social centers
- Preventing mother-to-child transmission through medical treatment and counseling
- Supporting orphan households and households where children are living with infected parents
- Providing antiretroviral drugs for infected parents whose children are still living with them
- Long-term family based care provided by SOS Children's Villages for AIDS orphans