SOS Children's Villages celebrates the UN International Day of Families

SOS Children's Villages raises awareness of the importance of families on 15 May, the UN International Day of Families. It is a special day to not only thank our own families, but to also remember and reach out to all those millions of children who have neither loving mothers and fathers, nor somebody who cares for them.

Every child needs to be loved (SOS mother and child from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) - Photo: Katerina Ilievska

Every child deserves to have a family where he or she belongs, feels loved and secure. The value of a family is infinite and the emotional security it conveys is the most extraordinary experience a child, or an adult, can have.

Often it is the little moments that create this sense of belonging. Every child deserves to have these special family moments. They may be routines such as bedtime stories or shared meals; they may be special celebrations of great joy, perhaps birthdays, religious holidays, or achievements at school. These moments bind us together, make us appreciate what we have and give us the reassurance that we belong to a loving family.

"If parents fail to convey this sense of belonging to their child - because their own history did not give them a place in the family of origin and hence in the world - children find themselves searching, abandoned, and doubting themselves", Austrian psychologist Regina Wintersperger explains.

Children from Bangpoo, Thailand, are enjoying the normality of daily family life - Photo: Nusrin Somchat

UNICEF figures put the number of children without parental care worldwide at about 163 million. Wintersperger: "By accepting these children into the alternative care system as foster or adopted children, carers provide them with a space in which they can experience emotional security."

As part of the awareness campaign, SOS Children's Villages is spreading the word by email, Facebook and Twitter encouraging people to pass on the message: "May 15th is UN International Day of Families - a good time to think about childhood moments that made your family life memorable and to think of children who do not have a family."

SOS Children's Villages reminds families that there are hundreds of things that make childhood memories special:

• Having family dinners together;
• Celebrating special festivities or a birthday tradition unique to one family;
• Telling bedtime stories;
• Creating routine moments with your children: Saturday afternoons could be bonding time for dads and daughters or mothers and sons;
• Playing games on long road trips;
• Attending your child's public ballet performances, the speech when running for student council, the spelling contest, the football tournament and share it with family members that could not attend;
• Creating a 'moments' calendar and/or board;
• Making a diary of special moments with your children;
• Making a gift of moments to each other;
• Inventing a family song;
• Creating a quiz night;
• Cooking events together with your children;
• Creating handicrafts together with your children.

In SOS families, children experience the feeling and certainty of belonging (SOS Children's Village Santa Cruz, Bolivia) - Photo: Benno Neeleman

The priority of SOS Children's Villages is to help families care for children. Regardless of their background, children should live in a family who will support them to reach their potential. When it is not possible for a child to remain in his or her biological family, he or she may find a new home within a family in an SOS Children's Village.