Message from the National Director

United Nations’ estimates put Nigeria’s population at about 189,531,754 as of January 2017, the equivalent of 2.55% of the world’s total population. Children and young persons of ages 0-24 make up 62.3% of Nigeria’s population, while 42.8% are in the range of 0-14 years. This infers a very young population, out of which over 17.5 million children are orphans or classified as vulnerable. Poverty, institutional corruption, poor access to quality health care and education, activities of extremists groups and insurgents, incidences of abuse such as child trafficking, child labour, early forced marriage are some of the factors responsible for the vulnerability of children in Nigeria, and these factors have continued to increase, just as the population.

SOS Children’s Villages Nigeria has been active since 1973 and has footprints across the country in Isolo (Lagos State), Owu-Ijebu (Ogun State), Jos (Plateau State), Ibadan (Oyo State), Kaduna (Kaduna State) and Gwagwalada (Federal Capital Territory). We contribute to the improvement of Child Care systems in the country directly and by working with relevant stakeholders for the development of the child into a self-supporting and contributing member of the society. We find the most appropriate response to the situation of children who are at risk of losing parental care and those without parental care in our programme locations. We are also at the front of innovative social and developmental interventions designed to mitigate some of the many challenges that youths face in Nigeria. I invite you to visit our National Office, recently relocated from Ikeja in Lagos to Asokoro in Abuja, our National Branch Office located within our Children’s Village in Isolo or any of our four SOS Children’s Villages Programme locations listed above, to see how you can be part of our activities or sponsor a child..