Do Page Three

Have you got a friend that you can talk to?
I have a close friend that I can share all my private thoughts with. She lives in my village and is also a farmer. When I find time to visit my mother I go to visit her too. I have another close friend too. Both of them now have grown-up children.

You worked as a kindergarten teacher and a primary school teacher before you became an SOS mother?
There was no school in the nearby town for the children from our village, and so I worked as a primary school teacher in the mornings and as a kindergarten teacher in the afternoons for seven years. I wasn't paid anything for this work. When a new teacher came to the village, the headmaster said that I should carry on working as a kindergarten teacher. I would have been paid a small salary for teaching primary school, but a kindergarten teacher isn't paid anything, because the kindergarten belongs to the village and the village can only pay with rice. I was an excellent teacher and was given a certificate by the local authorities in recognition of my work. All the people who lived in our community were impressed by my teaching methods.

What are your particular talents and strengths?
I really care for my children with all my heart. Apart from that I don't have any special talents. I'm just an ordinary woman.

Motivation for Her Choice of Profession
"I felt good when I imagined being able to live together with my new children." SOS Children's Villages sent information to my local authorities and the women's committee passed it on to me. The advertisement informed me that, as an SOS mother, I would have a family and would have to look after ten children. That meant that I would be living like a mother and that made me happy. My family tried to stop me from sending off the application forms, because I would have to go so far away to work and they didn't understand what SOS Children's Villages was about either. I told them, "If I mean anything to you, please let me work there. I think it would bring me the right balance in my unlucky life." They were able to understand this and gave me permission. I explained SOS Children's Villages more to them once I had completed the basic training, and they were able to understand it better. My friends were also very understanding and were happy about my new job. My mother was happy, because it meant she would have more grandchildren and my brother and sister were happy, because it meant that I too would now have children, even if I couldn't have any myself. I had spent a year previously looking for a second wife for my husband. I divorced him in the hope that he would have a happier life with another woman. I asked a younger woman if she wanted to marry my husband, in order to bear him children. And I felt good when I imagined being able to live together with my new children. I thought to myself, "This is my village, this is my family, these are my children. I don't want to live as I did before anymore."

Could you tell us a bit about your training to be an SOS mother?
When I went on the training course, we were taught about the philosophy and values of child rearing. We were given the confirmation that we could become SOS mothers and also an introduction to the SOS family. The trainers all came from external institutions such as the psychology department or the teacher training college at the university. They taught us how to look after a baby, how to guide a family and what sort of daily schedule the children of different ages should have as well as how to bring them up. We learned about motherhood and the love between a mother and a child. We all make mistakes and so does a child, but despite all these mistakes a mother loves her child. A mother has to care about all aspects of the child's life, whether it be his career or personal development and to support him at all times. When the child grows up, she has to care for the youth too. I had to learn how to prevent illnesses, how to treat children when they are sick, or how to deal with the children arguing with each other. When I had finished the training course I had to do a practical in a state-run orphanage. The training course lasted a total of seventy-five days for both the theoretical and practical parts. In the meantime the village was finished. It was the first SOS Children's Village to be built after the war. I went home for a week after the training course and then we started work. Everything went well except that my husband didn't want a divorce. So I explained SOS Children's Villages to him. Then I wrote an application for divorce and sent it to the courts.

Do's Story:
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All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.