Beijing SOS Children's Village Opens

Construction on the latest SOS Children's Village, in Beijing, wrapped up recently. The facility's first resident, Zhang Wenjing, a 3-year old girl from Beijing's Dongcheng District, soon will be joined by 120 other orphaned kids, according to an article in China Daily.

The Beijing village is the 10th such village opened in China and is a joint project between the SOS Kinderdorf International, a nonprofit that aids orphans, and the Beijing Municipal Government. The SOS Children's Village project began in Austria during World War II. More than 400 villages operate in more than 130 countries. Each village takes in or adopts healthy children who have lost their parents or whose parents are seriously ill or disabled.

Jin Linde, the president of the Beijing Village, told China Daily that the group "will manage and raise each child in a family manner and each 'family' will consist of six to eight children and one 'Mum,'" The village can accommodate a total of 15 such "families," each in its own brick house.

So far, the SOS Children's Village in Beijing has recruited 10 "Mums," according to an article in China CSR. These women are an average of 31 years old and have earned a college diploma. They also go through a background check and are given extensive training in childhood development.

"More important than finding a place in a nice house, however, is finding a place in the heart and mind of a loving mother," said SOS Kinderdorf International's president Helmut Kutin in an article on the group's Web site.

Kutin added that Chinese children who can't be raised by their families are often taken in or adopted by their extended families. This is not an option for children with mental or physical handicaps, who usually end up in state-run orphanages, where the quality of care may be low.

Many of the children who will live in the village come from migrant laboring families that are no longer capable of caring for them. Jin said he expects the village to have a hundred children in residence by the end of the year.