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Network of caring
To take care of the emotional, physical and intellectual well-being of disadvantaged children has been the long term objective of the SOS movement. As the world hobbled back to a semblance of peace after the mutilating World War II, an Austrian doctor, Hermann Gmeiner initiated the concept in 1949.
Today, it has spread to 131 countries. Orphan and destitute children are cared for in the SOS villages by a family unit headed by a house mother, who provides the necessary bonding through a family environment.
The SOS village in Chennai, the first one in South India, was started, in 1979 under a Public Charitable Trust by Ms. Uma Narayan and Ms. Valli Alagappan and it has developed into a village with 300 children. It is situated in a five-acre land at Tambaram (Ph: 2375061/2375097). There are about 15 houses, each home has a mother, who takes care of 10 children at a time. The housemother is carefully chosen and under her loving care, children grow up imbibing the way of life they are taught. Each family develops its own individual identity, as the mother is free to teach her religion and life style to the group she supports.
At a function held this past week, the international president of SOS, Mr. Helmut Kutin, declared open the Computer Literacy Programme in the Hermann Gmeiner Primary School. He was accompanied by Mr. J. N. Kaul, president, SOS India, and Mr. Siddhartha Kaul, deputy secretary general, Asia, SOS Kinderdorf International.
The village having received a grant of $6,130 from the Government of Japan for this specific purpose hopes to make its children as well as those in their neighbourhood, computer literate. The primary school in the village provides quality education and the children are equipped to join other schools to complete their higher education. The students, apart from becoming proficient engineers and graduates, have also turned out to be well-adjusted humans.
It was also the occasion in which traditional SOS "rings" were presented to honour those with long years of meritorious service at the village. The recipients of the prestigious awards were Punitha Arulanandam and P. Saraswathi.
Mr. Kutin recalled how the movement began from small beginnings in Tyrol, near Innsbruck, and has blossomed today into a worldwide network, offering permanent care to homeless children. The mother is always the focal point in any family and Mr. Kutin said that the house mothers are accordingly chosen, after careful scrutiny and rigorous aptitude testing. He commented on the emotional deprivation faced by over 90 per cent of the children in the West, despite the material affluence. Perhaps it is the aftermath of the two World Wars, which has made the children in subsequent generations "social orphans." As we are poised on the brink of another cataclysmic global conflict, the message from the SOS movement becomes all the more pertinent. It is important that we should nurture a generation of children on precious bonds of love, care and security for a brighter tomorrow. Even as Mr. Kutin reaffirms the cause of SOS movement, he wisely adds, "We never overstep our capacities."
Perhaps it is this realistic attitude that has ensured the success of this movement, which believes strongly in the axiom: "As we help our children we help ourselves to a richer life."
PREMA SRINIVASAN
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