Helmut Kutin

On behalf of SOS Children's Villages, Helmut Kutin accepts the prize at the Save the World Award 2009 .

Helmut Kutin (born October 4, 1941 in Bozen , South Tyrol , Italy ) is an Austrian social manager and was President of SOS Children's Villages International from 1986 to 2012 .

Live and act

Helmut Kutin is the fifth child of the lawyer Eduard Kutin and his wife Josefine. In quick succession killed his eldest sister, the first victim of the serial killer Guido Zingerle and his mother, the father lost due to the political situation, the citizenship, the family was torn apart, and said Helmut Kutin came in 1953 in the first SOS Children's Village to Imst in Tyrol . He grew up in the "Frieden" house, the first SOS Children's Village house. Kutin completed compulsory school in Imst and spent his youth in the SOS youth center in Innsbruck . He attended the local teacher training institute, graduated in 1963 and then began studying economics at the University of Innsbruck . Until 1967 he worked in tourism and as an educator to finance his studies.

After talks with Hermann Gmeiner and a language course in Paris, Helmut Kutin took on his first job in the fall of 1967 within the framework of SOS Children's Villages International. He began with the construction of the first Vietnamese SOS Children's Village in Saigon, today's Ho Chi Minh City . In 1968 he took over the management of this village, which at the time was the largest SOS Children's Village in the world. He built and looked after another SOS Children's Village and two youth facilities in Vietnam before he had to leave the country in 1976, one year after the end of the Vietnam War . Helmut Kutin moved his job for the management of SOS Children's Villages in Asia to SOS Children's Village Bangkok (Thailand). In December 1987, a contract was signed with the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to reactivate the SOS Children's Village in Ho Chi Minh City and establish a second SOS Children's Village in the capital Hanoi .

In Asia, Helmut Kutin - elected Deputy General Secretary of SOS Children's Villages International - did pioneering work. It is thanks to him that in less than ten years more than 50 SOS Children's Villages and another 50 additional facilities, such as kindergartens, Hermann Gmeiner schools, training centers, mother-child facilities and hospital wards, have been set up. The SOS Children's Village idea is now firmly established in twelve Asian countries, and a very special event was the opening of two SOS Children's Villages in the People's Republic of China in the spring of 1987.

In 1985 Helmut Kutin, while Hermann Gmeiner was still alive, appointed him as his successor. Kutin took over the presidency after Gmeiner's death in 1986. From then until 2012, Kutin was president of the umbrella organization SOS Children's Villages International, at the same time President of SOS Children's Villages Austria . In 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 he was confirmed in these functions.

In 2012 Siddhartha Kaul succeeded Kutin as President of SOS Children's Villages International. On this occasion, Kutin was appointed honorary president. Kutin is still chairman of the supervisory board of SOS Children's Villages Austria and full-time chairman of the board of the German support association SOS Children's Villages worldwide - Hermann-Gmeiner-Fonds e. V.

Over 154 new SOS Children's Villages were founded under Kutin's leadership. Since the opening of the East of Europe in 1989, the focus of his work has been in this area, where today there is at least one SOS Children's Village in almost every country in Eastern Europe.

Awards

• 1972: Chung-My Medal II Class, Vietnam
• 1974: Chung-My Medal I Class, Vietnam
• 1981: Silver medal for services to the Republic of Austria
• 1989: National Order of the People's Republic of Benin
• 1990: Large Federal Cross of Merit
• 1994: Commandeur de l ' Ordre de Mérite of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
• 1999: Papal Order "St. Gregorius Magnus"
• 2002: Highest Order of Merit in Laos, Cambodia, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde
• 2004: Knight of the Order for Services to Lithuania
• 2008: Great Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the State of Lower Austria
• 2011: Ring of the State of Tyrol
• 2012: Bavarian Order of Merit
• Honorary citizen of various cities, including Tehuacán and Campeche in Mexico, Moosburg in Carinthia (Austria), Caicó in Brazil and Lekenik in Croatia, Yantai and Lhasa in the PR China and Managua in Nicaragua

Individual evidence

1. ↑ New President Siddhartha Kaul wants to reach one million children ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. sos-kinderdorf.at, no author, no date  
2. ^ Curriculum vitae of Helmut Kutin, Honorary President - SOS Children's Villages International. Retrieved October 7, 2015 . 
3. ^ The SOS Children's Village Organization. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 21, 2015 ; accessed on October 10, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Website of SOS Children's Villages worldwide. Retrieved October 10, 2015 . 
5. ↑ List of winners of the Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria . Retrieved December 11, 2015.
6. ↑ Honor for SOS President Helmut Kutin by Governor Pröll ( Memento of the original dated December 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. July 1, 2008, accessed December 9, 2011.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Hermann Gmeiner	President of SOS Children's Villages International 1986–2012	Siddhartha Kaul