FIFA and SOS have chosen these projects because it is clear that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is sweeping across southern Africa, creating a generation of orphans and crippling economies. Despite this devastation there is a tremendous amount of hope—caring for the children and providing them with secure homes and access to all their basic needs will create a strong foundation for the future.

This campaign is in partnership with FIFA because soccer will be an integral part of these new projects—our aim is to give as many children as possible access to health, education and organized soccer. Canadian children have also been educated about the plight of children in other parts of the world through publicity campaigns which provide access to information while

offering team and individual prizes. Children in Canada between the ages of six and ten were selected to escort players onto the field to increase youth participation in the event and to remind fans to donate to a cause that benefits children. Working together at events across the country, FIFA and SOS Children’s Villages are aiming to raise 2.3 million CAD to be put towards the projects in Namibia and South Africa.

Contact:
Kelsey Lemon
Project Leader - Official Charity Campaign of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007
SOS Children's Villages Canada
E-mail: k.lemon@soschildrensvillages.ca
Tel: 613-232-3309 x 21 / 1-800-767-5111

SOS Children’s Villages (SOS) is an international child focused organization dedicated to providing long-term family-based care for children who have been orphaned, abandoned or who are unable to remain with their biological families. SOS currently operates in 134 countries.

In addition to raising over 50,000 children worldwide, SOS Children’s Villages also strengthens the communities in which it functions. The traditional focus on long-term care for children at risk has taken on new dimensions over the past several years and increasingly, the work of SOS Children’s Villages centres on initiatives and projects in community outreach and development. SOS operates with local communities to build and strengthen families and prevent child abandonment through programs in the fields of social development, education and health.

SOS Children’s Villages acts to ensure and safeguard the basic human rights of children everywhere as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – the right to survival; to freedom from abuse and exploitation; and, to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

The challenge is enormous. An estimated 13 million children across the world have been orphaned by aids. Close to 1.3 million children under 15 years of age are HIV positive. Wars, over the past decade alone, have claimed the lives of more than 2 million children and have left another 5 million disabled. Hundreds of thousands of children are directly involved in armed conflicts. An estimated 100 million children worldwide live on the streets.

The SOS Core Concept

SOS Children’s Villages works to reunite and strengthen families at risk. When children have lost their parents or when they are faced with intolerable situations within their families, SOS offers an alternative family-based model
of care. The SOS Children's Villages family-like structure is formed by four basic principles: parent, brothers and sisters, house and Village.

• Each child is given an SOS Parent, usually a mother, who cares for this child and is a substitute for the child's natural parents. The SOS mother builds a close relationship with her children, providing security, love and stability. She is a child-care professional who recognizes and respects the family background, cultural roots and religion of each child.
  
  
• Girls and boys of differing ages grow up together in an SOS Children's Village family as siblings. Natural brothers and sisters are not separated. Usually, children come into care at a very early age.
  
  
• Every family has a house of its own with a combined living/dining room as the centre of social life. The familiar atmosphere of a home encourages family bonding gives the children a feeling of belonging and security.
  An average SOS Children's Village has between ten and fifteen family houses. The Village provides the background for an extended family. The Village is also an important bridge to the local community. The Village not only promotes the integration of the SOS Children's Village children into the local district, but also offers resources and support to neighboring communities.

An Established Track Record

SOS Children’s Villages Canada

SOS Children’s Villages Canada was established in 1969 as a fundraising arm for the international work of SOS Children’s Villages. Its founders included some of the country’s most eminent citizens: Chief Justice Emmett Hall, Jeanne Sauvé, Member of Parliament, later Governor General, Otto Lang, Cabinet Minister, and R. Gordon Fairweather, Member of Parliament and later, Chair of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The organization was run entirely by volunteers for several years and has now evolved into a national office, which is responsible for initiating and continuing support for the international work of SOS Children’s Villages. The national office appeals to individual Canadians for financial support through donations and through the SOS Child and Village Sponsorship Programs. SOS Children's Villages Canada also seeks funding from Canadian institutions to support SOS programs being carried out by our International affiliates. Funds donated by caring Canadians support SOS Children’s Villages in many of the poorest countries in the world.

In many cases, donors decide which SOS Villages or programs to support. Often, SOS Children's Villages Canada responds to a humanitarian or natural disaster such as the recent tsunami disaster in South Asia, by launching an appeal to raise funds for a specific emergency or refugee relief program. An exciting initiative currently underway is the SOS and FIFA joint campaign for the 2006 World Cup. “6 Villages for 2006” will see six new SOS Children’s Villages established on different continents. SOS Canada has made a commitment to fund the construction of houses in the new village at Rustenburg South Africa.

For more information you can contact SOS Children’s Villages Canada:
by phone at: 1-800-767-5111;
by E-mail: info@soschildrensvillages.ca
or by visiting the SOS Website at: www.soschildrensvillages.ca


FIFA for SOS Children's Villages
Sport and social responsibility in partnership

The goal of the partnership with FIFA is to support children and young people from SOS Children's Villages first and foremost through public relations: to create public awareness of FIFA's social commitment to draw the attention of football audiences worldwide to the plight of abandoned and neglected children.

FIFA's commitment to SOS Children's Villages is the result of a proposal made by its former President João Havelange. In 1994 SOS Children's Villages was nominated main beneficiary of the former FIFA Youth Fund, and one year later the joint programme was formally sealed by João Havelange and Helmut Kutin and officially announced:

"The FIFA Youth Fund will give children worldwide a closer relationship with football. A central pillar of the work of the fund is collaboration with SOS Children's Villages." (João Havelange, then FIFA President.)

"Together we will communicate to the whole world a model for true partnership between sport and our special social responsibility for children." (Helmut Kutin, President of SOS Children's Villages)

According to today's FIFA President, Joseph S. Blatter, the 9 year cooperation between SOS Children's Villages and FIFA is "one of the clearest signals of social responsibility in the world of football. SOS Children's Villages is a wonderful partner, and this partnership is one of the most pleasing aspects of FIFA's work."

Many international activities and events are organised via the two umbrella organisations. Particular highpoints of the many events organised throughout 2000/2001 included the benefit match between the then world champion France and the FIFA World Stars, which was held in Marseille and watched by 60,000 people, and the FIFA World Player Gala held in Rome. Within individual countries, the

national football associations and SOS Children's Village associations are responsible for various joint activities.

Almost 50 leading football stars like Christian Vieri, Lucas Radebe, George Weah have agreed to serve as official ambassadors for the “FIFA for SOS Children's Villages Partnership” - they draw attention to the common cause in their various countries and at the international level as well as making a contribution to the activities organised in their respective fields. It is an incomparable experience for the children to meet their idols face to face and actually play football with them!

In addition, FIFA also provides financial support for sports fields for SOS Children's Villages and football training programmes for SOS Children and Youth. The FIFA training programmes (FUTURO II and Olympic Solidarity courses) are meaningful tools for promoting talented children and teenagers.

Promoting talent in theory and practice

"Letting children grow through their strengths" - a basic principle at SOS Children's Villages. Helping the children and youngsters develop their talents is a way of building up self-confidence. That in turn enables them to accept their weaknesses and to seek to improve. All children should be given the opportunity to achieve their individual goals.
Arousing their interests and promoting them through guidance and training is the way to make children aware of the abilities they have been born with and realize their potential.

For this purpose SOS Children's Villages offer a wide range of activities. In sports and games, music and the arts, at school and in the family, an early focus on personal development is a basic principle at SOS Children's Villages. The combination of sport and social responsibility, as reflected in the partnership established between FIFA and SOS Children's Villages, is a good foundation for identifying and promoting talent. In professional football, too, special emphasis is placed on working with juniors as tomorrow's hopes on the basis of fairness, determination and teamwork.

The work of promoting talented youngsters receives generous support from FIFA in the form of funds provided for urgently needed sports grounds, especially in the poorer countries of the world. These facilities are constructed in or near SOS Children's Villages, where they offer the children healthy and meaningful leisure activities, and good conditions for training for talented juniors.

Talented youngsters also receive meaningful support through the FIFA training programmes. These programmes provide coaching courses for coaches, referees, sport physicians and officials in all parts of the world. In the framework of the courses the FIFA instructors also hold training lessons with children and youngsters from the neighbourhoods of SOS Villages.

The SOS Children’s Villages involved are supplied with kits and equipment by FIFA sponsor Adidas. The courses provided by the visiting experts are not only a highly positive experience for up-and-coming young players but also a way of establishing contacts between the national football associations and the SOS Children's Village associations in the countries involved.

SOS Children’s Villages is recognized as the official charity of FIFA. Beginning with the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championships in the Netherlands, “6 villages for 2006” was launched as the Official Charity Campaign of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™. The campaign was successful, fundraising more than 25 million USD, helping to build villages in Vietnam, Brazil, South Africa, Ukraine, Mexico, and Nigeria. FIFA has once again named SOS as the Official Charity of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007. Their joint campaign “Let’s Play, Let’s Build” aims to raise 2.3 million CAD for children in southern Africa.