Helmut Kutin Award


Picking children up when crisis brings them down, giving them hope and someone to trust, is a truly rewarding experience - but it is equally challenging and demanding. To win the trust of a child requires a lot of personal commitment and passion. You must be patient and always treat the child as an individual - never as a file or number. Children and young people always feel the difference. Due to thousands of great co-workers who made and make this kind of a commitment, SOS Children’s Villages has been able to build families for children in need all across the globe since the organisation was founded in 1949.

The Helmut Kutin Award is awarded every second year. It recognizes extraordinary perfomances of SOS Chidren’s Villages co-workers who directly work with young people and families. Extraordinary perfomances are matched with the impact on the life of programme participants.

Only employees of SOS CV’s can be nominated. All SOS CV’s co-workers are invited to participate in an online voting process

The patron Helmut Kutin

For his entire life, Helmut Kutin has inspired co-workers and children around the globe. Having grown up in the SOS Children’s Village in Imst in the 1950s, he has promoted the spirit of SOS Children’s Village wholeheartedly for decades. As a village director in Vietnam during war times, as Asian representative and Secretary, General in the 1970s/80s and as President from 1985 to 2012: his focus has always been on the well-being of the individual child and the direct work with children.

Seeing how children take the offered hands and find again the courage and strength to live their lives is what has made working for SOS Children’s Villages such a rewarding experience for President Kutin. When he meets a child, he always meets them at eye-level, giving him or her a sense of belonging, respect and love. We will always foster this spirit – not only with this award.

Nomination

All global SOS co-workers can nominate any of their colleagues who are directly caring for children.

Winners of the last years

Read the interesting stories of the Helmut Kutin Awardees in recent years.

Award winners 2019

  • Salam Khalaf, SOS mother an the SOS Children's Village Qudsaya Damascus
  • Chandra Kala Thapa, SOS mother an the SOS Children's Village Gandaki

read more

Award winners 2017

  • Geeta Singh, SOS mother an the SOS Children's Village Khajuri Kalan in India
  • Mariam Traore, SOS mother an the SOS Children's Village Bobo Dioulasso in Burkina Faso

read more

Award winners 2015

  • Isaac Adowk, Youth Leader from South Sudan
  • Merlina Sabela, SOS mother from the Philippines
  • Abebech Kibret, SOS aunt from Ethiopia

read more

Award winners 2012

  • Margarita Maximiana Cusihuaman Sisa, SOS mother from Peru
  • Hanan Al A'Awar, SOS mother from Jordan
  • Jojis Miyir, SOS aunt from Ethiopia

read more

 

Contact

For more information please contact:

Alexandra Scheiber
academy@sos-kd.org
+43 512 3316