Iloilo

Country information

In 1957, the then Ambassador of Austria and his wife, who had been living in the Philippines for thirty years, started supporting a child at SOS Children's Village Imst, Austria (the first ever SOS Children's Village). In 1959, after a visit to Imst, they started talking about this idea in the field of child care to some people in the Philippines. In 1963, , the founder of SOS Children's Villages, came to the Philippines. One year later, the national SOS association, SOS Children's Villages in the Philippines, was founded. In 1967, the first SOS Children's Village of the country was erected at Banay-Banay, Lipa. Nine family houses were built within a year. Over the years, several more SOS Children's Villages have sprung up all over the country. Many ancillary facilities, such as SOS Kindergartens, SOS Youth Facilities, SOS Social Centres and SOS Schools, have been built as well. Additional work, such as renovation or extension of existing facilities, has also been necessary due to the ever-increasing need for SOS Children's Villages. In early 2000, after a visit to SOS Children's Village Manila, Gloria Arroyo, then vice president and today president of the Philippines, approached SOS Children's Villages to ask for the construction of a new SOS Children's Village in the Western Visayas region. There were still many orphaned or abandoned children in need of care but the country's existing SOS Children's Villages were all filled to capacity. The Archdiocese of Jaro donated 2.6 ha (6.4 acres) of land with good infrastructure to SOS Children's Villages. The site is located in the centre of a town called Zarraga, which is about 20 to 25 minutes from the centre of Iloilo. The nearest airport is 20 km (12.4 miles) away. SOS Children's Village Iloilo consists of 12 family homes, a community house and the necessary administrative buildings. In addition, there is an SOS Kindergarten with four classrooms. Four teachers look after about 80 children from the SOS Children's Village and from the neighbourhood. The country's existing SOS Kindergartens have shown that they are of great help to the families who live around the SOS Children's Villages. At SOS Kindergarten Iloilo, courses for the local inhabitants, especially for girls and women, are held in the evenings.