As of June 2007, Hungary baby team kicked off the SupportingLives programme together with the local SOS Children’s Villages organisation.

Based on the initiatives discussed in a company wide meeting the Unit has agreed on a 3-years commitment of at least 4M HUF (~16k Euro) per year. The first project is to fund the surgery room for children in the SOS Children’s Village in Battoya.The SupportingLives team will further orientate on projects that the unit can do with the funds and/or by personal help.

Concrete steps for raising money were offering the spendings to X-mas presents to the SOS village (3000 euro) and to create a program in which personal networks are used to raise money to pay the annual electricity bill for the 12 houses in Battonya. That is 500 euro per house per year. Within 2 weeks 5 houses are covered!

About Battonya

Battonya is a small rural town with approximately 7,500 inhabitants, situated on the Hungarian lowland plain, about 5 kilometres from the Romanian border. Battonya was the first SOS Children's Village in a then Communist country, which was not state-owned, but was entirely subsidised by the private SOS Children's Village Association.

The SOS Children's Village Battonya comprises ten family houses, houses for the village director and the SOS aunts (who support the SOS mothers and take care of the children when the mothers are on leave), a community building and an administration and service area. SOS Children's Village Battonya has a capacity to take in up to 65 children.