2017 Prizewinners

Naïla Saadé, the President of the CMA CGM Foundation, awarded the Foundation Prize 2017 to SOS Children’s Villages. The prize recognizes the extraordinary work this organization does to provide siblings with a family life environment and the assurance of a lasting emotional and educational relationship with an SOS mother.

SOS Children’s Villages takes care of siblings who have been placed by court decision and allows them to have a real family life. The children live on a daily and long-term basis with a family educator or an SOS mother who surround the children with their emotional presence, but also their educational skills. A whole team of directors, youth workers, psychologists and family educators work alongside the SOS mothers to help the children rebuild themselves and maintain ties with their parents and prepare their future.

SOS Children’s Villages France welcomes almost 1 000 children and young adults in 14 SOS Children’s Villages and 3 associated integration structures. Present in 135 countries,  SOS Children’s Villages International takes care of more than 84 000 children and young people in 571 SOS Children’s Villages across the world. Inaugurated in 1972, the SOS Children’s Villages in Marseille has the largest capacity of them all. The family houses and the communal house are grouped together in the Roy d’Espagne park in the 8th arrondissement. The village can accommodate around 60 children.  

The Foundation awarded its 2017 Lebanese Prize to the SESOBEL association for its actions in favor of children suffering from disabilities and their families.

Founded in 1976, SESOBEL intervenes to help children and adolescents with physical and mental disabilities or pervasive disabilities and works with their families to provide better support. A multidisciplinary team of professional, health and education specialists, as well as hundreds of volunteers, take care of these children and young people who come from all over Lebanon for medical support, re-education or an educational program to develop their capacities and become autonomous. Thanks to this help-through-work center the children can access jobs according to their capacities. In addition, a big center for autistic children is now in construction.