The degradation of abject poverty made a deep impression on Mr. Madanjeet Singh when once as a student he saw at the Coimbatore railway station in India the heart-rending scene of a woman cooking rags and old newspapers in the pot for her four naked children - described in his book This My People, published in India by Mapin. Hence he was very impressed by the initiative taken by the late Professor Dr. Hermann Gmeiner, who established in 1949 the SOS-Kinderdorf International to provide long-term, family-based care to children worldwide.

SOS Children's Villages came to India in the year 1964 and thereafter to Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Today South Asia has 50 SOS villages with social centres that provide education and care for women and children, outreach programmes and emergency care. (http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org).

During the Second SAF General Conference in Colombo, the SAF Chairpersons visited an SOS camp in Malpotha and approved the resolution adopted by the SAFLI Academic Council on February 19, 2003, which stated: "Besides PGD-ESD courses, basic education for the deprived communities and teacher training with local input shall receive special attention to achieve the widest possible reach. SAFLI will co-operate with such NGOs, which are working for the much needed education of abandoned children as, for example, Maiti-Nepal and the some 50 SOS villages, which the SOS-Kinderdorf International has established in South Asia. It is from such grassroots projects that regional cooperation essentially draws its enormous strength to build a future of peace and stability in harmony with Nature."

Click here to read more on the first SAF-SOS Environment Camp, Malpotha, Sri Lanka