How does your donation help?

Nearly 250 children are separated from their biological parents in Estonia every year, and there are thousands of children in need of help. Removing a child from their family is the last resort when other solutions have failed and their age-appropriate development, safety and wellbeing are at risk. Prevention is essential to ensure the safety of children and to support families.

Your donation will help the families stay together. The objective of the programme is to empower families so that children are not separated from their homes. Currently, almost 500 children participate in the prevention programme.

The Family Strengthening Programme of the SOS Children’s Village works in Harku, Keila, Kohtla-Järve, Kose, Lääne-Harju, Narva, Narva-Jõesuu, Põhja-Sakala, Põlva, Põltsamaa, Rapla, Räpina, Saku, Saue, Sillamäe and Toila municipalities. The need for new regions is growing.

With your help, families at risk will be offered social support and their parenting skills will be developed. Families are assisted and counselled by a support worker from the SOS Children’s Village, whose task is to empower the family, find the strengths of the family members, improve the family’s social skills if necessary, or offer the help of various professionals. Support workers are people the family can fully trust and rely on for help.

Participation in the programme is not compulsory, but a contract is signed with the family. The contract is necessary to keep the family in the programme for at least the minimum period (6 months). Once the contract is signed, the family support plan is drawn up and the support worker will start implementing it with the family.

The state does not finance the prevention activities in full and the required amount of money must be raised with the help of generous donors. The programme has been running since 2008; in that time we have been able to prove to over 1000 families that the best place for a child to grow up is in their own home, not in a children’s village. Today, all of these families are able to bring up their children and manage their own lives.

Further information: www.sos-lastekyla.ee

The organisation is included on the list of non-profit organisations eligible for income tax incentives. Read more about taxes here: Donations and taxes