Accra (Greater Accra) 23 June '99

SOS Villages throughout the world will celebrate their 13th International Day and Golden Jubilee of their founding father, Hermann Gmeiner, on Wednesday, June 23.

A release issued in Accra said Herman Gmeiner, father and founder of the SOS Children's Village idea, was born on June 23, 1919 and died in 1986.

A year after his death in 1987, SOS Kinderdorf International decided that June 23 each year will be observed as the International SOS day.

The objectives of the celebration is to remember Gmeiner , propagate the SOS Children's Village idea, and to win for SOS more friends, donors and sponsors to support its Child Welfare work.

To climax the celebration on Wednesday, a new song - Love flows like a river to the sea - has been composed specially for the SOS Children's Village jubilee year, reuniting the voices of all SOS children world-wide in 385 villages in 130 countries and on all the five continents of the world.

The release asked all SOS villages to sing this special song on Wednesday as a hymn of International understanding.