Child Sponsorship Background from Quito, Ecuador

SOS Children's Village Quito

In 1963, Latin America's third SOS Children's Village was opened Quito, the capital of Ecuador. SOS Children's Village Quito, which is 18 kilometres from the Equator, can be reached from the city centre by car in about 30 minutes. It was built on eight hectares of land and has twelve family houses, a village director's house, an administrative building with offices, a medical treatment room and a house for the "SOS aunts" (SOS Children's Village mothers in training who assist current SOS mothers in their everyday work and stand in for them if they are ill or on holiday).

Other SOS Projects in Quito

Two SOS Youth Homes (for girls and boys) were set up in urban Quito in 1995. Young people from the SOS Children's Village can be housed there for the period of their secondary or vocational education, which gradually prepares them for an independent life.

A total of eight SOS Social Centres were created in Quito between 1991 and 2005. They are run as day-care centres, each able to offer daytime supervision for up to 160 children. This enables their mothers to make a contribution to the family income by means of paid work and prevents poverty-threatened families from breaking up. Furthermore, the SOS Social Centres offer preventive health care for children.

Background to Quito

Quito is the capital city of Ecuador. It is located in north-central Ecuador, about 15 miles south of the equator in the Guayllabamba river basin. It has a population of approximately 1.4 million. It is the oldest capital city in South America, with a history dating back thousands of years.