Motherhood is said to be the world’s most noble profession — loving, caring and sacrificing your own happiness for that of another. This is essentially the same for SOS mothers except the kids they care for are not related to them by blood.
Alicia Andrade, 56, started in SOS Village Cebu when she was only 28 years old. Orphaned at age 6, Alicia was entrusted to relatives who cared for her and raised her. Custody was passed from one relative to another until she was able to finish school and go on her own.
“I have distant relatives who used to work for SOS and that’s how I got introduced to the team,” Alicia narrates.
After a year of helping out with the children in SOS Village Cebu, she was assigned a home in SOS Manila located in Alabang. “I was part of the first few ones who came here. When we came here it wasn’t even finished yet,” she shares .
The first batch she was assigned was composed of 10 kids from different backgrounds.
29 years into her profession she says she’s had 4 generations of children and a total of 46 kids. Some have gone on to pursue careers in psychology, criminology, hotel and restaurant management among many others. “Marami na din akong naging teachers (I have a lot of children who became teachers),” she proudly declares.
“I just wanted to give back the same help my relatives gave me,” she explains when asked why she decided to become an SOS mom. “I want to help orphaned or abandoned children because I was once like them,” she quips.
Read more about the life of “professional mothers” in the next page
Mommy Training
So how does one become an SOS Mom?
Mommies here start out as SOS aunts. Call it an internship or OJT training of some sort. Aunts are tasked with assisting the moms in the village. Each week, moms are given an entire day to go out to unwind during which it’s the aunts who “babysit” the kids and take over the household.
Since being a mom is a lifelong commitment, aunts are given two years to decide if they want to push through with the program and become a mom.
After they decide to take the plunge and be a mom, they’ll have to go through Mommy training that would last a few months. During mommy training they are taught everything they need to know about caring for kids and running a household among many other things.
And when there’s a vacant slot, they are assigned a house.
In each SOS Village there are 8- 12 houses each with one mom that runs the house like a typical household. The mom is given a monthly allowance she will spend on the kids’ food and other needs. She prepares the kids’ tasks, allocates the budget, prepares the meals, and tutors them after school.
The only difference is that she reports to a central office which monitors their spending and provides support. They also do not operate with an ‘SOS husband’. Each village however is assigned one Village Director who acts as the kids’ father figure.
Read: Supermom Lillibeth Abella: Abandoned Child Turned Volunteer Mom
What love life?
Only single women are allowed to apply to become a mom. And throughout their stay in SOS Village as a mother, they are not allowed to have a husband or any form of romantic relationship.
This is to ensure that there won’t be conflict of interest and that the moms focus all their time, attention, and energy in raising their children well. It’s a welcome sacrifice for some like Alicia who have vowed to dedicate her life to less fortunate kids.
“Out of the three pioneer moms here in SOS Manila I’m the only one left,” she says. “The others left and got married,” Alicia shares.
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