A Doctor in the Making

How your support is transforming young lives.

SOS Children’s Villages believes that no child should grow up alone. Our first priority is to support families at risk to prevent family breakdown, so that children do not need alternative care. This is carried out through our Family Strengthening Program. In cases where a child cannot be cared for by their family of origin, we provide quality alternative family-based care in the form of Children’s Villages, where children grow up as part of an SOS family.

Lily* is one of the children that lives in the SOS Children’s Village in Ondangwa.

A Doctor in the Making

“Lily* has everything it takes to become a medical doctor one day,” says her SOS mother enthusiastically. “She is committed to her schoolwork even when things get really tough for her.”

Lily came to live in her SOS family just over five years ago, at the age of nine. Lily was severely malnourished, sickly and really looked to be in a vulnerable state when she first arrived.

Her biological grandmother struggled to care for her and her mother, who was terminally ill at the time. In her elderly state, Lily’s grandmother found it difficult to work and provide enough food for the family. As a result, the health of Lily’s mother weakened, and Lily herself often became sick. Education was out of reach in the early years of Lily’s life. Instead of going to school with her friends,she stayed home and tried to help her grandmother take care of her
ailing mother as best as she could. When the burden of care got to be too much, Lily’s grandmother approached SOS Children’s Villages in Ondangwa to provide alternative care for her grandchild.

Now 14, Lily shares a close bond with her SOS mother, and is an extremely focused and driven student. She loves going to school, and has big dreams of becoming a doctor one day, to be able to care for people who fall sick, as her biological mother had.

*The name has been changed to protect the privacy of the child.