The International Friendship League has enjoyed a long association with SOS Children’s Villages, a charity which works to ensure that children who have lost their parents through conflict, famine, natural disaster, disease and poverty can enjoy a family life. Where possible, this is done by working to prevent family break up, but in addition over 78,000 orphaned or abandoned children are cared for by SOS mothers in clusters of family homes in 518 of the unique children’s villages in 124 countries around the world
The British Section has for a very long time supported an SOS Children’s Village, firstly, from 1977 at Ostuni in Southern Italy, and subsequently, from 1986 at Estelí in Nicaragua.
More recently the British Section has lent its support to the building of a new children’s village at Chipata in Zambia. The building of this village was completed in 2012 and the village was officially opened in October of that year. A year later, when it celebrated its first birthday, there were more than 80 children living in the village with more arriving every month.