In Europe many people died during the Second World War. As a result, at the end of the war there were many orphans there. A man called Hermann Voss wanted to help these children. His idea was simple. He wanted the orphans to have a home, and he wanted them to have the care and kindness of parents. Voss asked people to give him some money. With this money he built the first SOS Children's Village at Imst, in Austria. It opened in 1949. This is how the SOS Children's Village started. The letter SOS stand for "Save Our Souls." This means "Please help us!" And SOS Children's Village gives help to orphans. Hermann Voss's idea for helping orphans soon spread all over the world. By 1983 there were 170 SOS Children's Villages in the world. People in many countries give money to help the villages. Today the children from the first village are grown up. Now some of them work in other SOS Children's Villages.