Second SOS Children's Village to open in Uganda

SOS Children's Village Entebbe located on the northern shores of Lake Victoria started to be active a year ago and is the second project (the first was Kakiri) of SOS Children's Villages in Uganda to provide long-term care to orphaned and abandoned children. High local AIDS infection rate, increasing urbanisation and the disintegration of traditional large family structures further the demand for child care facilities which sparked the decision to establish an additional SOS Children's Village.

Currently, 70 children have found a new home there. With the facilities at full capacity, the village with twelve family homes will house 120 children. The supplemented social work services package comprises a kindergarten to mainly take in children from the neighbourhood, and a small medical station.

President Yoweri Museveni will attend the official inauguration of the new village in person. SOS Children's Villages President Helmut Kutin and the delegate of the Swiss Friends of SOS Children's Villages, who provided the biggest contribution to financing the project, will also attend the inauguration ceremony.

Apart from SOS Children's Village Kakiri (active since 1991; includes a kindergarten, a school, a youth facility and a medical centre) and SOS Children's Village Entebbe, a temporary SOS Children's Village was established in 2002 in the context of an emergency relief programme to help refugee children in Gulu in northern Uganda. For years, this part of the country has been the theatre of violent clashes between government forces and rebel groups.