A Home for a Home

Background for the partnership

Heimstaden has a genuine passion for real estate and people. Their success rests on a very simple notion – happy people are good for business. Building a better society, where people thrive and live in harmony, is something they contribute to every day and have done for 23 years. With their strong values and customer centered mindset, they enrich and simplify life for over 250 000 people through Friendly Homes, every day showing that they are a landlord with a conscience. Now, they are taking their social contribution to the next level through A Home for a Home partnership, that will make a huge difference for children and families all over the world.  

• A Home for a Home is a partnership between Heimstaden and SOS Children’s Villages, the largest of its kind for both organizations.
• The agreement is made between Heimstaden and SOS Norway. The partnership also involves the local SOS Children’s Villages member associations in several countries in Europe. SOS Children’s Villages in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Norway is a part in this cooperation.
• Heimstaden will contribute 100 EUR for every home that they own, with over 110 000 homes across Europe, SOS Children’s Villages will receive over 11 million EUR annually. The amount will increase parallelly to the growth of Heimstaden’s real estate portfolio.
• SOS Children’s Villages will allocate most funds to existing projects, where support is most urgently needed, both in terms of upscaling existing projects and establishing new ones. Additionally, the partnership entails local projects in each country they are present.   

Global portfolio
Co-created activities

CEO SOS Children’s Villages, Ingrid M. Johansen look forward to new opportunities for expanding  programmes, allowing to reach out to more children, young people, and families:

- The partnership helps us to think much bigger, faster and in new ways. With the funds available we will be able to scale our existing programs, reaching many more children. Adding Heimstaden’s wish to contribute beyond its financial donations, we are able to develop new initiatives and think about how to support our target group in brand new ways – for instance, in tackling the housing issues faced by children and families in our target group.

It also means a lot for our whole federation. The partnership has brought together multiple national associations. SOS Children’s Villages Norway as the lead partner has entered into close cooperation with our Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch and Czech member associations. As Heimstaden continues to grow, so does our potential for scaling up the cooperation. We are currently looking at expanding the partnership to include Poland, Finland, and the UK. Each day the partnership grows, and so do our ambitions for what we want this partnership to be.

The close cooperation between the SOS Children’s Villages national organizations and Heimstaden offices is unique and exciting. It both challenges us, creates new opportunities and increases the efficiency of what we are to deliver. In addition, when so many creative and skilled employees work.

Global portfolio

Total budget EUR 10,443,535 and we are reaching
55 000 benficiaries.

Region: Eastern and Southern Africa (ESAF)

Region: Latin-America (LAAM)

Region: East Europe (EUNA)

Co-created activities

Total budget EUR 1,369,606

Family Strengthening

Families living under constant pressure, either due to poverty, substance abuse, war, conflict or natural disasters, often fail to provide children with care and love, and opportunities for education. In the global portfolio, there are now 27 programs where the objective is to give children and young people better conditions for growing up, and to support vulnerable families so that they can contribute to the children getting this. Many of these families have complex challenges. SOS Children's Villages' locally employed social workers and psychologists therefore work in close dialogue with each individual family to contribute to increase their quality of life, and enable them to manage on their own. And last but not least, give children and young people hope and faith in the future.

All children have the same rights

Children are exposed to rights violations every day. All children have the right to live a dignified life, and to be protected and educated. The latter, education, is one of the rights violations we are working on in the global portfolio. Millions are denied education because they are forced to work instead of attending school. We cooperate with authorities and local organizations, and build up local capacity for children's rights to be safeguarded. We are also working against the worst forms of child labour; by supporting the children’s caregivers with basic needs; empower their communities to protect them; and lobby duty bearers to enforce existing legislature.

Ensure that children grow up with caregivers

SOS Children's Villages works to ensure that children grow up with their closest caregivers, preferably mum and dad. We work to prevent child-family separation. For instance in Czech Republic, newborns are placed in institutions, without the involvement of social or legal authorities. Together with local authorities, A Home for a Home has become an established program that strengthens parents’ abilities to take care of their children. Many of these families will live in apartments prepared by Heimstaden and SOS Children's Villages for up to six months, where they will receive professional care from SOS Children’s coworkers. With new offices, located on one of Heimstaden’s properties, SOS Children’s Villages will be closer than ever to the children and families in need of their aid.

Read more about Co-created activities

By the end of 2021 co-created activities were established in all the six partner countries. ​

• 5 activities were finished, 6 are still in progress and will be completed in 2022. Guinea Bissau is a multiyear project running till 2023. ​ 
• Some of the co-created activities experienced delays due to covid.​
• The start-up phase was postponed in some of the activities due to delays in entering into agreement from the partner countries. All the co-created activities were approved in June, and the final contracts were signed in late August.​
• Additionally, alongside executing the 2021 co-created activities, all the partner countries were involved in a development process of new projects ahead of the application deadline on the 12th of December 2021. ​