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SOS Children’s Villages Kazakhstan

Bringing SOS Children’s Villages Under NNEF’s Care

In 2018, Dinara Kulibayeva expanded the scope of the NNEF Public Foundation (NNEF) by bringing SOS Children’s Villages under its auspices. This decision created a powerful link between education and social protection, allowing vulnerable children to grow up in safe, nurturing environments.

Building on a model first introduced in Kazakhstan in 1994, SOS Children’s Villages has helped pioneer a more humane and child-centred approach to care. Over the past three decades, more than 600 children and adolescents have received family-based upbringing through the programme, gaining not only safety and stability, but also the confidence, independence, and social skills needed to build successful adult lives.

Under Dinara’s leadership, SOS Children’s Villages attracted substantial financial support, including more than $4.7 million from local sponsors (of which over $1.9 million represented the personal contribution of the founders), as well as $1.5 million in international grants. This has been used to strengthen its services for children in need.

Supporting SOS reflects Dinara’s broader life mission: to protect children, nurture their potential, and create the conditions in which every child can grow up with dignity, security, and hope.

Securing Long-Term Impact

SOS Children’s Villages today goes far beyond traditional care. Its work includes diverse care models, including community-based houses for SOS families preventing family separation, supporting children at risk, preparing foster and adoptive families, and helping teenagers transition into adulthood.

Since expanding its preventive services, the organisation has helped more than 2,700 children remain in their biological families, while its Asar Crisis Centre has supported women and children in difficult life circumstances and helped around 170 children avoid placement in institutional care. Through its School for Foster Parents, more than 290 children have found new families.

By bringing SOS under the NNEF umbrella, Dinara Kulibayeva helped secure not only the continuity of this work, but also its long-term national relevance. Since NNEF became a co-founder in 2018, SOS has strengthened cooperation with public institutions and contributed to the development of family-based care in Kazakhstan. Since 2019, 89 children from state orphanages have been given the opportunity to live and grow up in SOS families rather than institutional settings.

Helping Shape the Future of Child Protection Policy in Kazakhstan

In partnership with the Committee for the Protection of Children’s Rights, SOS Children’s Villages is contributing its expertise to the development of new professional standards for specialists working with children without parental care.

A key foundation for this engagement is the Coordination Council, which for more than five years has served as a national platform for professional exchange and capacity development. Through this platform, SOS Children’s Villages has been consistently working with specialists from 11 state Children’s Villages, demonstrating its expertise in strengthening professional competencies and introducing modern, child-centered approaches in alternative care.

This experience has positioned the organisation as credible and trusted, contributing to the advancement of professional standards in the sector. Building on this foundation, its training programme is being integrated into the state system of professional development, and included in the national training register – becoming an officially recognised programme for capacity building of government specialists. This ensures the long-term sustainability and scalability of the initiative.

A two-year national rollout is planned for 2026–2027 to train 1,900 professionals in modern approaches such as case management, trauma-informed practice, violence prevention, and the creation of safe, supportive environments for children. This means SOS is not only a charitable initiative, but a trusted contributor to systemic reform at a national level.