Dear SOS Children‘s Village Friends! We are sincerely thankful to you all for you kindness and your heart warmth, that made  our children Christmas brighter and which helps us in this hard period of life for all of us.

The Project „Families‘ Social Services Day Center Establishment And Inter-institutional Collaboration Strengthening In Alytus City“.

The Project aim: according to the monitoring and evaluation analysis our aim is to develop a day care centre in Alytus which would provide social services for families and would strengthen the inter-institutional collaboration of non-governmental and governmental organizations.

19.06.2009

“Good afternoon to our families, our volunteers, friends and sponsors! It’s so great to see you all here”- those were the greeting words of Gerda and Gytis for SOS Children Village birthday event to start.

3. 03. 2009

Correspondence with girls Jenny, Madde, Elin and Emmy from school “Bergska skolan in Finspång” started in February of 2008. Girls have chosen to help children living in the social risk group families participating in SOS Lithuania Family Strengthening projects.

10.04.2009

Rimantas Jonas Dagys, social security and labour minister, has visited the SOS children village on the Great Friday together with his advisor Elena Urboniene. Minister and his advisor brought children the Easter dainties and titbits, asked about children daily conditions, needs, visited SOS mother‘s Dangiruta family.da

09.03.2009

On March 6th EU Social Fund and SOS Children Villages in Lithuania signed the financing and administrating contract for the project  „Live Differently“ , lead by SOS Children Villages in Lithuania. Project duration is three years and it‘s funded amount is 917 659 LT (265 988 EUR). The aim of the project is to integrate children from care institutions and social risk families into employment market while providing them with requested and needed knowledge and skills as well. Project‘s target group is 14-18 years old youngsters and young families (up to 29 years of ages)with children, located in Vilnius and Alytus cities and regions.

 Alytus Family Strengthening project‘s children this Christmas  merrily celebrated in Vilnius.  New friend  of SOS Children‘s Village in Lithuania, „KPMG Baltics“ , made that beautiful idea to come true.

Children from SOS Children Village made their drawings for the exhibition „My Christmas Mirracle for Capital“, that decorated the hall walls in the city goverment building. The main idea of children‘s drawings was the kind things and mirracles, that children would like to give to Vilnius city and it‘s citizens for Christmas.

Vilnius SOS Children Village Children‘s Club started its new season on 29th of October. And this time it was especially joyful event: whereas thanks to Netherland Consul of Honour Herman De Lange Vilnius’ SOS children village received especially targeted valuable support  from "Austrian Culture and Economy in the Netherlands" Foundation for  club‘s renovation and started its new season renovated  essentially.

More than fifty children, participants of Family Strengthening Projects in Alytus and Vilnius of the Association of SOS Children‘s Villages in Lithuania, had a chance to forfil their life spirit in SOS Children Camp in Karkle.

The week at the warm but stormy sea side gave an increadible impressions to children. Most of them had their very first chance to enjoy the pleasure of the sea.

According Alytus project coordinator Rima Mockeviciene, the main aim of Family Strengthening Projects is to prevent the child‘s abandoment and therefore hollidays in the summer camp is another meaningful part of Family support and Strengthening projects.

„Thirteen is a brilliant number,“ –  said the director of  SOS kindergarden Dainius Miezys. – Thirteen means the adolescence, and this period is always full with aims and discoveries, new experiences and feelings, new self perception“. Director encouraged everybody not to be afraid of new challenges and not to be short of bravery while seeking new targets.

Childrens‘ lips kept whispering gratitude words to dearest people – Mothers. The National Director of SOS Children‘s Villages in Lithuania Audrius Natkevicius made a public message of thanks to all sponsors and friends of SOS Children‘s Villages for their support which gives the Association the better possibility to take care about the children. Children danced, sang, played the music, participated in sports games, and all guests of the celebration had a possibility to visit SOS families.Towards evening the traditional birthday camp-fire was set. And thirteenth birthday‘s cake was incredibly big, beautifull and very very tasty!

We would like to thank AB „Vilniaus duona“, UAB „Nestle“ for all birthday‘s feast and gifts and all SOS Children‘s Villages sponsors and friends! We wish you all the beautiful summer and great hollidays!

Until the very end of May children from the SOS Children’s Village were able to admire miniature nature corners and were learning how to create them with their own hands, – an exhibition was organized by Vilnius Aquarium Club in the library of SOS Kindergarten.

The new club ‘Auto Fans’ has been opened for some time already in the SOS Children’s Village, Vilnius.

SOS Children’s Village Community was preparing thoroughly for this most beautiful spring celebration.

On the 17^th of January, in the afternoon, the Children’s Club was officially – and very merrily! – opened in Vilnius SOS Children’s Village.

How much do the children know about cars? Do they want to know more? As we have no doubts that we can give a very short answer to both of these questions, i.e. ‘yes’, the topic of the first event organized in the newly opened Children’s Club was ‘Everything about Cars and Traffic Safety’.

How are birdies doing in winter? Aren’t they cold? Do they have anything to eat? – These were the concerns of the SOS Kindergarten children from the Pabiruciai group. Alongside educators and parents, the children organized a campaign ‘Let’s Take Care of the Birds’.

What is it that the children are waiting for every year when the winter comes? For white snow and school holidays, of course! Almost all of the children from the Vilnius SOS Children’s Village were swirled into the whirlwind of holiday events, camps and entertainment.

The last month of 2007 has indeed been a special one in the SOS Village, Lithuania: it has brought many unforgettable moments to children and all of us taking care of them.   We sincerely give thanks to all the SOS Village friends for their good deeds, kind words, generous support and unselfish help to children.  We wish the New Year to be full of love, noble decisions and big works.

The SOS Kindergarten children had been preparing Christmas morning time while waiting for Christmas. How creative they were!

Christmas is coming. For the fifteenth time an SOS mother Danutė is going to prepare a white Christmas table for her children in the SOS Village.  Yes, fifteen years of being a mother - Danutė has become the real mother for kids who haven’t been granted real parents.  Eleven children call Danute ‘mummy’. All of them gather in her family during Christmas – those who are growing here and those who have already started their independent life.  Some of them come with their spouses and children – Danute’s grandchildren.  Real Christmas at mom’s place…

On December 13 there was an evening get-together at the non-governmental SOS Kindergarten with such honorable guests as Cardinal A.J. Bačkys and sisters nuns.

On December 18 the residents of the SOS Youth Facility II, situated in Nadruvos street in Vilnius, hosted special guests – representatives of UAB “TietoEnator”.  TietoEnator Corporation is one of the biggest IT companies in Europe.  This year they have given an exceptionally valuable support of 140 000 Lt to the SOS Youth Facility II.  By courtesy of our most generous supporters all the furnishing which started two years ago will be finished: the building is going to be heated, finished inside and outside and three more rooms will be opened for six more young people to live in.

On December 19 the staff of Vilnius SOS Children’s Village was given an official letter of thanks for their sincere care for children who are orphaned or abandoned by their families.

Such a title, full of hope, was named for a project seeking to implement the first prevention of psychoactive substance use.  The project was conducted by the SOS Children’s Village Association staff involved in the Family Strengthening Program.  Vilnius municipality has sponsored the project according to the Prevention of psychoactive substance use program.  The project partners were Žygimanto Augusto secondary school, Šaltinio secondary school and S.Kovalevskajos secondary school.

Every year all the SOS Kindergarten community waits for a celebration of lantern. This year it was marked on November 29. Many relatives, friends and children dressed in elf outfit gathered in a decorated hall. As usual the kindergarten families make their own lantern.

We sincerely thank everyone of good will who donated their purchased products to Food Bank in “IKI-EGLUTĖ” supermarket, Antakalnis. All donated food is going to be distributed to every family living in Alytus and Vilnius towns and its districts and participating in the family strengthening program of SOS Children’s Village association. Almost four hundred children live around this area. We give thanks to volunteers of SOS Children’s Village association and, of course, to the Food Bank organizers.

One November Saturday has been plainly a ‘chocolate day’ for two large SOS Children’s Village families. They got invited by the staff of CADBURY CIS B.V. representative company. Yummy sweets – a dream of every child, isn’t it!  Children, showing their gratitude for unforgettable moments, gave their painted drawings about chocolate and even made a small concert!

As Christmas is coming more toys, given as gifts, bring joy to our children. They give lots of happiness to our little ones – playing with toys children to learn and develop their skills to love, take care and be friendly. We sincerely thank all Lithuanian children (and their parents), who gave their outgrown beloved toys to our fostered children of the SOS Children’s Village.

On December 10, an eco action called “Let’s protect the pond” was organized in the SOS Kindergarten.  This idea came up to our higher housemother Jolanta Balteinė after she had read about the project competition organized by Vilnius municipality. When the kindergarten director  Zita Sakavičienė gave her affirmation, the SOS kindergarten staff wrote the project called „What lives in a pond?“ and were granted financial support.  The elder of Šeškinė Liudvikas Lajauskas agreed with this initiative and since then Šeškinės eldership has become a partner of the SOS Kindergarten.

On October 5 youth from Facility I and II houses went to a three day seminar called „Me and you make it true“. The seminar was attended by youth from Utena and Panevėžys. The goal was to help each participant to release the potential creativity and enable them to solve emerging problems or difficulties in a creative ways.

September month has gathered our children back to schools from a careless summer.  This year on September 1 morning 87 children and youth from non-governmental foster house Vilnius SOS Children‘s Village and two SOS Youth Facilities went to school. Little ones, lead by their mothers, were carrying flowers together with brothers and sisters.  Three first graders of the village were lead to a knowledge-land with best wishes, encouragements and gifts.

Lina Verseckaitė, a psychologist of Vilnius SOS Children‘s Village, visited Greece Plagiari SOS Children‘s Village in August.

On August 25 staff delegation of the SOS Children‘s Village association and Vilnius SOS Children‘s Village headed to have two celebration parties with their colleagues in Latvia. There was a 10th anniversary of Islicė (Bauskė) SOS children‘s village and an opening of the second Latvian SOS Children‘s Village in Valmier, a town consisting of 30 000 citizens in Vidzeme region.  Three families have already settled in this village and twelve children started to live there.

Twenty eight school aged children from Alytus district were camping in Karklu SOS children‘s camp during the first week of August.  Children’s summer holiday camp is one of the activities in a family strengthening program which helps children to develop their social skills and have a fulfilling time.

The young fishermen from SOS Children Village do not have time to bore in summer. They opened summer fishing season in late May, when they participated in fishing competition in the warm canal of Elektrėnai see. Under encouragement and advice of Uncle Vacys, who is a supplementary education expert educator and long-term fishermen’s circle manager, children were decoying roach, perch, rudd, bream, but the biggest catch was bleak. Winner of the first place managed to catch 48 bleaks! Thanks to sponsors, everybody won prizes!

On the twentieth of June Vilnius SOS children Village celebrated its twelfth birthday and invited all friends and sponsors to the open day. It was so good to see the desired guest the first lady Alma Adamkienė, President’s advisor Violeta Toleikienė, respectable guests: parliamentarians Nijolė Steiblienė and Artūras Paulauskas, Vilnius City Municipality Child’s Rights Protection Service manager Gintaras Žandaravičius, directors of the assembly, our sponsors, neighbours and ex-students of the Village with their offspring in this celebration. It was so fun among friends!

Mixed Iceland choir “Samkor Kopavogs”, which organized charity concert cycle in Baltic States, gave a concert for Vilnius people on the twelfth of June. This charity concert was organized by real estate agency Re/Max and all resource gathered in this concert were dedicated to holidays of our Vilnius SOS Children Village students.

SOS kindergarten celebrated the 1^st of June (International Children Protection Day) in a special way: it organized family celebration “We Are Safe and Beloved” in geographical centre of Europe. Wonderful landscapes and enthusiasm of children and their educators encouraged parents, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends and even neighbours of the children to come to this celebration.

Are creative abilities really important in educators, who work with children, and what personal features help to reveal them? What encourages and what suppresses creativity and how to form it? SOS Youth House and Vilnius SOS Children Village educators examined a topic of creativity in Creativity development seminar organized by the assembly in May.

Medics of UAB “Kardiolita” made a nice present for Vilnius SOS Children Village students on the occasion of International Children Protection Day: they gratuitously monitored hearts of fourty children using modern devices and took note of importance of cardiological disease prophylaxis and early prevention of such diseases, since younger and younger children tend to have such diseases.

First days of May brought SOS Kindergarten educators a possibility to improve their professional skills in Iceland. Their responses of the travel were really excellent!

Sincere congratulations to our student Vitalijus Šilingovas and his bride Margarita on the day of their marriage! We also congratulate his mother Eliza, who raised such wonderful son, and all his family. Family unity, reciprocal understanding, happiness and everlasting unfading love to the newlyweds!

Children gathered in SOS Kindergarten hall on the 7^th of May really had things to surprise their guest, author of their favourite books Vytautas V. Landsbergis: they presented him a manually illustrated “catalogue” of his 15 books, played improvised games under his books, sang and danced.

Foster-children of SOS I Youth Home gathered in annual great working bee in the seaside before the first weekend of May to help employees of SOS Children Camp of Karklė to get ready for summer season. In words of one rasa, a participant of this working bee, all young people were cleaning roadsides and camping site: they picked garbage, grubbed up the weed and raked leaves. The weather was excellent, so, when works were finished, everybody rushed to the sea. Several brave ones even managed to swim in the sea; then everybody picked colourful stones polished by the sea, made drawings on them and gave to their mothers on Mother’s Day.

Foster-children of  Assembly of Lithuanian SOS Children Villages (Vilnius SOS Children Village families, pupils of two SOS Youth Houses, children of families participating in Alytus’ preventive family consolidation projects and kids from other children foster homes rest here each year.

Children of socially vulnerable families from Vilnius got their first chance to spend holidays in Karklė, since one more family consolidation project started in the beginning of the year.

Residential house in SOS Children Camp of Karklė waits for holidaymakers all year long. It offers great accommodation conditions for families, which enjoy recreation in natural surroundings, and for seminars or trainings for groups of 15–25 people.

Second preventive project of this year for risk families organized by Assembly of SOS Children Villages covering Vilnius and its vicinities runs up. Its coordinating office is in 30 sq. m. premises at Šeškinės St. 26. Project coordinator is Lina Kėželytė.

Alytus’ preventive project “Social Disjuncture Decreasing Program for Country Children of Problematic Families” has been successfully implemented for three years already. This family consolidation project covers 53 families with 222 children.

Merry Little Dragons

In spring holidays members of pottery and art circles in SOS Children Village participated in joint project “Merry Little Dragon”. Reviving nature and forthcoming Earth Day encouraged them to become ancient people in various senses (colour, form, extent and movement). Art studio children made sketches and decoded them onto leather, pottery studio children made statues and then made large spatial compositions together with their circle managers Rimantas and Jolanta and became “Merry Little Dragons” themselves in the Yard of Crafts. It was extremely fun!

People say “Nothing is better than a good friend, unless a good friend with package of chocolate”. It goes without saying that employees of “Berlin Chemie Menarini Baltic”, who came to congratulate children on Easter Eve and made them a real chocolate feast, brought mountains of joy for foster-children of SOS Children Village.

Children poured chocolate to forms on their own and competed to create tastier, bigger and nicer “hand chocolate”. And each victory was awarded with… sweet prizes!

It is good to have good friends. Just like making an own-hand-made chocolate gift to one’s Mother. Happy Easter!

In the afternoon of April 5 Vilnius SOS Children Village students and employees went to clean their residential environment with rakes on their shoulders and besoms in their hands. National Office employees of Assembly of Lithuanian SOS Children Villages and a group of young people of the two SOS Youth Homes came to help them. The little brothers and sisters met them with particular enthusiasm. It is more pleasant to work together, oh, well, coping also becomes funnier!

The 2^nd of March was especially jolly day in SOS Kindergarten: we celebrated Kaziukas. Every guest was met with fun accordion music and unusual decorations: large inscription “Somebody sells, somebody buys and somebody gives for buckshee…” was hanging in the best visible place, canteen turned into “Kaziukas’ cookshop” and the hall was the fair place. Personnel and children of the kindergarten were wearing national costumes.

All children wait for winter, but... soon get bored of it! That is why Vilnius SOS Children Village students drove it out of their yard so heartily on Shrovetide! The doll Morė, made by VPU students, who were practicing in SOS Children Village, and children of the Village, went up in flames together with all bad things written on sheets of paper. Well, the winter was long and things happened... But now we wish you a happy spring, our dearest!

There’s probably no child in the world who would not be interested in taking apart an old lock... just to find out what was inside! What about a telephone, an iron or a tape recorder?  The end of January was marked with activities that would definitely appeal to curious minds: the kindergarten held a “Knowledge and Exploration Week”.

The Vilnius SOS Children’s Village gave a helping hand to two Lebanese children, who suffered in the Israeli conflict last summer.

The new “Blood Diamond” film from Warner Bros. coming out on January 26  was eagerly awaited in Lithuanian cinemas by children from the SOS Children’s Village. Along with Hollywood stars like Leonardo di Caprio and Djimon Hounsounot, 24 children from the SOS Children’s Village in Mozambique appeared in this film. What child doesn’t want to become a movie star like their favorite heroes?

What career is best suited for me? What professional abilities do I have and which ones do I need to develop in the area of my interests? – these questions are important for the 16 year and older children, so juveniles from Youth facility I took an active part in the “Hephaestus” project exploring their career development.

The effort to decorate houses and yards for Christmas was a success for the Vilnius SOS Children’s Village. The SOS Children’s Village was declared a winner of the municipality contest, and received a certificate with the signature of the Mayor of Vilnius, along with many thanks for having created a festive atmosphere for themselves and other city residents.

The Vilnius SOS Children’s Village has established a tradition of visiting the Vilnius municipality “Atgaiva” social development day care center before the New Year. This center provides services to the elderly and disabled as well as facilities for their socialization and leisure.

Before the main celebrations start, SOS Children’s Village Lithuania pays particular attention to the risk group families of over 200 children in Alytus in locations such as Alovė, Punia, Daugai, Nemunaitis and Krokialaukis. Let Christmas to be merry and satisfying for each family with children!

December 14^th was not a regular evening for the Vilnius SOS Children’s Village and SOS Kindergarten: His Eminence Cardinal Audrys Juozas Bačkis, together with several nuns came for a visit.

Have you ever seen a convention of Teddy Bears? Curiously enough, one took place just before Christmas in the SOS Children’s Village on Ozo street, Vilnius!

More than 500 Teddy bears from Sweden took part in it. This was a greeting that Swedish children sent to our children, wishing them a warm and happy Christmas.

Photo by D. Labutis

The popular singer and leading personality of last year’s AIDS campaign, Hokshilla Andrade, visited SOS Youth facility I on Skroblų street before World AIDS day. “AIDS is closer than you might think. Always be true to YOURSELF”. This was the message he gave repeatedly to the young people this year.