diff --git a/OSBindings/SDL/SConstruct b/OSBindings/SDL/SConstruct
index 2bc56fea6..bfa96a418 100644
--- a/OSBindings/SDL/SConstruct
+++ b/OSBindings/SDL/SConstruct
@@ -1,4 +1,9 @@
 import glob
+import sys
+
+# establish UTF-8 encoding
+reload(sys)
+sys.setdefaultencoding('utf-8')
 
 # create build environment
 env = Environment()