Child Sponsorship Background from Faisalabad, Pakistan

SOS Children's Village Faisalabad

SOS Children's Village Faisalabad was set up in 1988 in order to provide protection and a family life for orphans and abandoned children from the area. The village is located in an agricultural area about 250 km from the capital Islamabad.

The SOS Children's Village has 15 family houses that offer a new home to up to 150 children, a village director's house, an aunts' house, a communal building, a mosque, and an administrative block. An SOS School and an SOS Social Centre were also built on the premises.

Other SOS Projects in Faisalabad

The SOS School was set up in 1995 to provide a higher standard of education for both SOS children and children from the neighbouring communities. It has 13 classrooms, two laboratories and a library, and can take in 600 pupils.

The SOS Social Centre has been providing health advice since 1993. It currently sees 200 patients a month.

SOS Youth Home was established in 1997 in Fateh Din Main Bazar, which is the most densely populated area in Faisalabad, about 15 km from the village. It is home to about 35 teenage boys who are receiving vocational training or are in secondary education. Moving to the SOS Youth Facility means that the boys are taking their first steps towards independence.

Background to Faisalabad

Faisalabad is a city in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. It was formerly known as Lyallpur. Faisalabad is the third largest city in Pakistan after Karachi and Lahore. Before the foundation of the city in 1880, the area was very thinly populated. The population has risen from 9,171 in 1901 to 179,000 in 1951 and to 2,009,000 in 1998.  The larger Faisalabad district had a population of about 5.4 million in 1998.