 February 3, 2012: In a small town called Gode in Eastern Ethiopia, a young mother named Hamdi nears the front of the line to see a doctor. It's late afternoon. She has been waiting all day with her two-year-old daughter Yusra, but the SOS Medical Center is always busy and the doctor always occupied. Now at last, her turn has come. Learn how SOS is aiding child health care in Ethiopia... January 31, 2012: Twenty-nine-year-old Lelly Laurentus is an unemployed computer technician who drives a taxi when work is available. As reported by The Associated Press (AP), two years ago, after Haiti’s massive earthquake killed more than 300,000 residents and rendered a million more homeless, he made a decision that he thought was for the best.
Learn about the difficult decision... February 1, 2012: It's 4:30 in the afternoon and the local water source from the Shebelle River near Gode town is crowded with children and their donkey carts. Rahmo, 12, and her younger brother finished school earlier and are helping their mother to collect a barrel of water for the family. Learn more about how SOS donkey carts provide relief in Ethiopia... January 26, 2012: Every year hundreds of thousands of children, themselves or their parents lured by promises of a better life, are spirited across Central African borders, forced into lives of grinding street labor or sex slavery. Read about the problem of trafficking in Central Africa... January 19, 2012: Millions of families, especially children, are at risk of severe malnutrition from a looming food crisis that is expected to hit Western Africa’s Sahel region as early as February. Learn more about the looming crisis... In reflecting the events of 2011, SOS Children's Villages President Helmut Kutin outlines how children are impacted by changes in the global political and economic landscape. Listen to the interview... Two years after the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010, the intense efforts of SOS Children's Villages to help in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Haiti are showing significant results. View the Haiti Video... January 11, 2012: At least half of the over 220,000 casualties of the earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, were children. Many of those who have survived the turmoil of the past two years have been abandoned by families no longer able to provide for them due to poverty and impossible living conditions. Girls, in particular, face sexual violence in makeshift camps. Over 500,000 people still living in camps endure worsening conditions as donor funding and interest in Haiti’s reconstruction wanes. Plan International, SOS Children’s Villages and World Vision call on the European Union (EU) to consider the protection of children and the economic and social support for their families in Haiti a top priority. Two years after the earthquake in Haiti the most vulnerable are still at risk... |