Dr. Mrs. Margaret Nkrumah, Principal of the SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College in Tema, has been elected as the Vice President of SOS Kinderdorf International (KDI), the parent organization of the SOS Children’s Villages worldwide.

Dr. Mrs. Nkrumah was elected to the new position at the recent SOS General Assembly held in Innsbruck, Austria.

She has been Principal of the SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College for the past 18 years, impacting on many SOS children in African countries. She was also a member of SOS Kinderdorf International Senate and the KDI representative for Ghana.

Dr. Mrs. Nkrumah, under whose leadership most of the SOS children gained admissions to universities with a good number of them in responsible positions in Ghana and other countries, sees her appointment as a very great honor for her personally, Ghana and indeed the whole of Africa. As an African, she considers her new appointment as a challenge to strive for excellence and commitment in the quest to improve the lives of vulnerable children in Africa as well as intensify fundraising activities to reduce dependence on foreign donors.

According to her, formal and vocational/technical education will remain at the forefront of her efforts to ensure that all SOS children receive quality education to enable them face the future with confidence. She also wants to use her appointment with KDI to create awareness on the plights of disadvantaged children in Africa and the need for all countries to take responsibility for looking after their children.

In the aftermath of her appointment, Dr. Mrs. Nkrumah expressed appreciation of her new role and emphasized “I accepted the position of Vice President with great humility but also with the determination to make a difference and with total commitment to the worldwide cause of SOS Children's Villages and I will do my utmost to rise to the challenge.”

Dr. Mrs. Margaret Nkrumah graduated from the English department of Leicester University, United Kingdom in 1963. She returned to Ghana and got married to Dr. Francis Nkrumah, a distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and a son of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana. They have three daughters. On 14th July 2005 she was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Laws (LLD) at a graduation ceremony at Leicester University, in the United Kingdom and Doctor of Letters from the University of Education at Winneba in 2007.

SOS Children's Villages is an international non-governmental social development organisation that has been active in the field of children's rights and committed to children's needs and concerns since 1949 and is now in 132 countries and territories with activities focusing on children without parental care and children of families in difficult circumstances.

Currently SOS Kinderdorf has two Villages in Ghana; Tema and Asiakwa. Attached to these Villages are educational institutions which include Kindergarten, a Primary and a Junior High School, as well as a Vocational Training Centre. SOS Kinderdorf International has also set up the Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana to provide the highest possible standard of education for SOS children in Africa who show potential for advanced academic education.

The Family Strengthening Program (FSP), initiated by SOS Kinderdorf International in 2004 to help prevent child abandonment is operating in the SOS Children’s Villages in Tema and Asiakwa. This project currently supports over 1200 orphans and vulnerable children in communities in Greater Accra, Eastern and Central regions of Ghana.

SOS-Ghana is also constructing a third and fourth Children’s Villages in Ghana at Asokore-Mampong in Kumasi, Ashanti Region and Tamale in the Northern Region respectively and is poised to take up the challenge of becoming a leading model for SOS activities in Africa.