Helmut Kutin

“If we want our children to develop in a positive sense, we need people who are willing to accept diversity in culture, religion and thinking, who are willing to accept other people as they are and to let them grow.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“A global welfare network like SOS Children’s Villages can only remain alive and dynamic if a continuous effort is made to respond to changing conditions in the society involved and to accept new challenges in the interest of the welfare of the children. With this ongoing process of adaptation to the various social realities of the world, the work of SOS Children’s Villages will continue to lead to targeted developments in the facilities and services offered.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“It is a question of creating a hard currency of love, of letting the material help that we provide become effective at the spiritual level, too.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“. . . in every respect, the SOS Children’s Village must fit into its surroundings. As far as possible, every suggestion of an abnormal situation must be avoided, even if this involves certain disadvantages. For the more normal the circumstances in which the child grows up, the better for its development. The neglected child has one great wish: to be like other children.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“Adolescent boys and girls need the help and support of a family while they are learning self-reliance.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“We cease to understand the nature of children when we fail to appreciate the importance of a child’s relationship with his mother. This relationship lays the foundation for our whole development, both as individuals and as members of society.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“So much depends on the right composition of the SOS family [. . .] children can usually be placed in the type of SOS family which best suits their needs.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“. . . we must make the profession of an SOS Children’s Village mother attractive in the intellectual as well as spiritual sense. In this way we must create a new, modern women’s profession like the professions of nurse or social worker.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“The SOS Children’s Villages have made one simple idea the basis of their whole educational work. They have grown from the assumption that no child can live without a family, that the child needs the family in order to develop and unfold his physical, mental (and) spiritual powers.”

Hermann Gmeiner

“. . . in my opinion, nothing in the world is more important than to care for a child.”