Aga Khan’s ex-wife to be envoy for Indian SOS villages

For Salimah, born to British parents in Delhi in 1940, the visit to Faridabad marks the beginning of what she promises to be a long association with Indian children. “I am here to help raise millions so that millions of children can be helped through SOS projects,” she said after meeting mothers and children in many of the homes in the village. She also spent time with mothers who had joined the village around 30 years ago and were now staying in a home for retired mothers.

Modelled on the first SOS home, set up in Austria in 1949 by Professor Hermann Gmeiner, the village in Faridabad has 12 homes, each of which has about eight to nine children under the care of a mother. At one such home in the village — Mamata Niwas — none of the children went to the neihbouring SOS school today while the eldest daughter Preethi, who works in the office of an English newsmagazine in the Capital, took a day off to welcome the princess.

As six-year-old Sheroo snuggled up to his mother Rita Singh while watching TV, there was nothing in the atmosphere which showed that these children had been separated from their biological parents and that Rita Singh was only an employee of the SOS villages recruited as a mother 14 years ago.

It was this atmosphere of warmth that moved Khan six years ago on a visit to an SOS village in French Polynesia, soon after her separation from her husband in 1995. “I visited the village when it had just been set up and found how frightened the children were,” she said, adding: “The following year I visited again and found that each of the children were happy and were proud of their own homes.”

India is the leader for all SOS units not only because it has the largest project covering 15,000 children in 32 homes and two lakh others indirectly, but also because Indian projects are leading the way for others, the princess said.

“As an ambassador for Indian SOS, I would be travelling and raising funds and generally following the advice of Kutin — the SOS president,” she said.

Salimah added that several SOS villages are proposed to come up and some of them are being set up in areas affected by militant violence like Jammu and in Rajpura in Punjab.

Pradeep Singh, who heads SOS operations in India, said that several state governments like that of Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have also come forward with donations of land to set up SOS villages.