Beneficiaries of an SOS Children's Villages Family Strengthening Program in Iloilo, Philippines

October 8, 2010: Forty-four percent of children in the Philippines, or 12.8 million children under age 15, live in poverty. This alarming figure represents a 4 percent rise in poor children between 2003 and 2006 -- an increase of roughly one million. 

These findings are revealed in a recently released study by the Manila-based Philippine Institute for Development Studies and UNICEF.

Importantly, the study also looks at multiple facets of child poverty such as lack of food, shelter, education, health care, clean water, and electricity. According to the report, 5.4 million Filipino children were deprived of at least one of the three dimensions of well-being -- shelter, sanitation, and water -- in 2006.

More rural than urban Filipino children are impoverished, finds the study. Of the 12.8 million children living in poverty, 9.2 of them reside in rural areas.

These stark trends came as 140 world leaders met at the United Nations to discuss how to speed up progress on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The first of those goals is to end poverty and hunger by 2015.

SOS Children’s Villages Gives Hope to Poor Filipino Children

Map of SOS Children's Villages in the Philippines

As the number of poor boys and girls swells in the Philippines, SOS Children’s Villages continues to save a portion of the country’s children from poverty. SOS is a worldwide organization that has been giving family-based homes, schooling, and health care to Filipino children for more than 40 years.

SOS’s seven Children’s Villages across the several islands that make up the Philippines also reach children in need living near SOS facilities. SOS kindergartens, schools, and vocational training centers lift at-risk children out of poverty by equipping them with an education and job skills.
SOS also provides daycare, health and parenting counseling, and feeding programs to families and children residing near its Children’s Villages.

 

Saving Children One at a Time

Five SOS sisters smile for the camera at the SOS Children's Village in Cebu, Philippines

While the big picture for the number of children still living in poverty is bleak, that does not deter SOS Children’s Villages from doing what it has done for more than six decades across the globe -- save children, one at a time.

Each SOS child is placed in a warm home with a loving SOS mother and SOS siblings to play with. SOS children grow up in a supportive environment where teachers nurture and train them for a productive, independent life.

You can support SOS Children’s Villages and learn exactly how SOS Villages save lives.  Join SOS Global Village Builders now -- for 40 cents/day you can join a movement for a child's right to a family and make dreams come true.