Tacloban

Country information

The second SOS Children's Village of the country was opened in 1971 on the island of Leyte, at Milagrosa, approximately 4 km from the city of Tacloban. The SOS Children's Village Tacloban consists of eleven family houses, a community centre, the Village Director's house and staff quarters. The younger children are looked after at the SOS Kindergarten, which is also open to children from the neighbourhood. An SOS Elementary School for approximately 600 pupils was built in co-operation with the Ministry of Education. Two buildings of the school complex house an SOS Social Centre for Mother and Child. The aim of this centre is to improve the standard of living of the neighbouring population by providing the people with basic medical care at a medical and dental clinic, and by counselling the mothers of the neighbourhood. In 1989, a home for retired SOS mothers was established. Next to the SOS Children's Village, an SOS Youth Village was erected. It consists of four houses, one of which accommodates students from the SOS Children's Village Calbayog, because there are no universities or colleges at Calbayog. As the colleges in Tacloban are quite far from the SOS Children's Village, the students are taken to the city by the SOS bus.