Girl Orphaned by Earthquake Welcomed into SOS Village in Sanothimi, Nepal

Ten-year-old Lila was playing outside with her cousins when the earthquake struck and her home collapsed next to her, on top of her parents and six relatives. Two of them were rescued alive from the rubble but her mother and father died.

SOS Children’s Villages Nepal was informed about Lila, an only child, by her neighbours. One of Lila’s aunts looked after her while SOS Nepal, in cooperation with the authorities, exhausted efforts to find family members who might be able to care for her, before admitting her to the SOS Children’s Village Sanothimi two weeks later.

On the day she arrived she had difficulty adjusting to her new SOS family, and very upset. But with the affection and care from her SOS mother and nine SOS siblings, she has started adjusting well.

Lila is now enrolled in the SOS School in Sanothimi, in Grade 4. She enjoys going to school and feeding the fish in the small aquarium in her SOS family home. Lila’s youngest SOS sibling was also orphaned in the earthquake.

Children who lost their parents in the earthquake face a challenging psychological recovery process, noted SOS Nepal National Director Shankar Pradhananga. For those taken in to SOS villages, accepting an SOS mother as a new guardian and SOS siblings as their own siblings is difficult, especially for the first few weeks, as they are still haunted by the traumatic loss of their parents.

Learn more about how SOS Children's Villages is helping in Nepal.