Child Poverty 

Child Poverty

When families become entrapped in the cycle of poverty, it is very difficult to climb out. An estimated 1 billion children live in poverty today, according to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF.

Many parents can not adequately care for their children anymore because they lack the financial means and material support. Often a family's poverty can lead to child abandonment and placement in alternative care.

SOS Children's Villages not only cares for orphaned and abandoned children but also works directly with families to help them through tough economic times. SOS offers various forms of support to strengthen and stabilize families as much as possible so that children can grow up in their own families. 

Read more about Child Poverty...
Student doing excercises in class

Poverty Drives Kenyan Boys From School into Mines

February 16, 2012: "Even my parents say what I am doing is right; I can buy my own clothes. What is the point of being in school?” This is what a 14-year-old boy working in a gold mine in Western Kenya for $1.20 a day recently told IRIN news service. Learn about child labor in Kenya...
Deciding Who Eats in Congo: Children or Parents?

Deciding Who Eats in Congo: Children or Parents?

January 10, 2012: In Kinshasa, the capital of Africa’s mineral-rich Congo, low salaries and exorbitant food prices mean that families must choose who eats each day. Learn more about poverty in the Congo...
Children in Laos

Hope for a Healthy Future in Laos, Despite Hunger Worldwide

October 13, 2011: Baymone is a 17-month-old child who lives in Savannakhet, Laos. Her parents are poor farmers and live in the countryside, about 125 miles away from SOS Children's Village Savannakhet. The youngest of the three siblings, she was severely malnourished and weighed only 15 lbs. Learn how she survived...
Child with lime

Escalating Food Prices and Child Malnutrition

June 14, 2011: In poor nations, rising food prices are having a negative impact on children’s nutritional health. That’s because families in impoverished regions of the world spend up to 80 percent of income on food, so when costs skyrocket, they cut back. Forced to stop buying nutritious foods like meat, poultry, fish, and produce because of their high relative costs, low-income households turn to cereals and grains. Donate now to help decrease malnutrition in children...
Orphan Population Growing in Juarez, Mexico

Orphan Population Growing in Juarez, Mexico

February 15, 2011: By the end of 2011, some 8,500 children will be orphaned in Mexico’s violence-wracked city of Juarez, along the Texas border. For four decades, SOS Children’s Villages has been providing vulnerable Mexican children with an on-site alternative to adoption. At eight SOS Children’s Villages across the country, orphaned and needy children find long-term family-based care, loving homes, and hope for a brighter future. Read more about SOS in Mexico...