| Founder(s) | Eglantyne Jebb Dorothy Buxton |
|---|---|
| Type | NGO |
| Registration No. | England & Wales (213890) Scotland (SC039570) |
| Founded | 1919 |
| Location | Second Floor, Cambridge House, 100 Cambridge Grove, London, W6 0LE, UK |
| Origins | London, England |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Mission | A world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation. |
| Revenue | £291,500,000 |
| Website | [1] |
The Save the Children Fund,[1] commonly known as Save the Children, is an internationally active non-governmental organization that promotes children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries.[2] It was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 in order to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.
In addition to the UK organisation, there are 28 other national Save the Children organisations who are members of Save the Children International, a global network of nonprofit organisations supporting local partners in over 120 countries around the world. Current campaigns include Every One, advocating for increased infant and child survival rates, and Rewrite the Future, focused on bringing quality education to conflict ridden areas.
Save the Children promotes policy changes in order to gain more rights for young people[3] especially by enforcing the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Alliance members coordinate emergency-relief efforts, helping to protect children from the effects of war and violence.[2]
Contents |
The Save the Children Fund was founded in London, England, on April 15, 1919 by Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton as an effort to alleviate starvation of children in Germany and Austria-Hungary during the Allied blockade of Germany in World War I.[4]
The Fight the Famine Council was initially started earlier in 1919 in order to put political pressure on the British government to end the blockade. However, on April 15, 1919, the sisters succeeded in separating itself from the politics of the Council and creating a separate “Save the Children Fund”.[4]
In May 1919, the Fund was publicly established at a meeting in London's Royal Albert Hall in order to "provide relief to children suffering the effects of war" and raise money for emergency aid to children suffering from the wartime shortages of food and supplies.[5]
In December 1919, Pope Benedict XV publicly announced his support for Save the Children, and declared December 28 'Innocents Day' in order to collect donations [6]
The first branch was opened in Fife, Scotland in 1919. A counterpart, Rädda Barnen (which means "Save the Children"), was founded later that year in Sweden, and together with a number of other organizations, they founded the International Save the Children Union in Geneva on January 6, 1920. Jebb built up excellent relationships with other Geneva-based organizations, including the Red Cross who supported Save’s International foundation.[4]
Jebb used many new ground-breaking fund-raising techniques, making Save the Children the first charity in the United Kingdom to use page-length advertisements in newspapers. Jebb contracted doctors, lawyers and other professionals in order to devise mass advertisement campaigns. In 1920, Save the Children started individual child sponsorship as a way to engage more donors. By the end of the year, Save the Children raised the equivalent to about £8,000,000 in today’s money.[6]
By August 1921, the UK Save the Children had raised over £1,000,000, and conditions for children in Central Europe were improving due to their efforts. However, the Russian famine of 1921 made Jebb realize that Save the Children must be a permanent organization and that children's rights constantly need to be protected.[7] Their mission was thus changed to "an international effort to preserve child life wherever it is menaced by conditions of economic hardship and distress".[6]
From 1921 to 1923, Save the Children created press campaigns, propaganda movies and feeding centers in Russia and in Turkey in order to feed and educate thousands of refugees. They began to work with several other organization such as the Russian Famine Relief Fund and Nansen which resulted in recognition by the League of Nations. Although Russia was largely closed off to international relief and aid, Save the Children persuaded Soviet authorities to let them have a ground presence.[4]
At home, the Daily Express criticized the Fund's work, denying the severity of the situation and claiming they should be helping their own people before helping Russia. The charity responded with increased publicity about the famine, showing images of starving children and mass graves. The campaign gained national appeal, eventually allowing the organization to charter the SS Torcello off to Russia with 600 tons worth of relief supplies. Over 157 million rations were given out, saving nearly 300,000 children. Save the Children closed its Russian feeding program in the summer of 1923 and allowed the organization to reach international legitimacy and acclaim.[8][4]
At the end of World War I, images of malnourished and sick children ran throughout Europe. Jebb and her sister worked to gain public sympathy in order to elicit support aid.[9] Save the Children staff were among the first into the liberated areas after World War II, working with refugee children and displaced persons in former occupied Europe, including survivors of concentration camps. At the same time, work in the United Kingdom focused on improving conditions for children growing up in cities devastated by bombing and facing huge disruptions in family life.[6]
The 1950s saw a continuation of this type of crisis-driven work, with additional demands for help following the Korean War and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, but also the opening of new work in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in response to the decline in Britain's colonial empire.[6]
Like other aid agencies, Save the Children was active in the major disasters of the era—especially the Vietnam War and the Biafra secession in Nigeria. The latter brought shocking images of child starvation onto the television screens of the West for the first time in a major way. The sort of mass-marketing campaigns first used by Save the Children in the 1920s were repeated, with great success in fundraising.
Disasters in Ethiopia, Sudan, and many other world hotspots, led to appeals which brought public donations on a huge scale, and a consequent expansion of the organisation's work. However, the children's rights-based approach to development originated by Jebb continues to be an important factor. It was used in a major campaign in the late 1990s against the use of child soldiers in Africa.[6]
In 1923, Jebb wrote: "I believe we should claim certain rights for the children and labour for their universal recognition, so that everybody--not merely the small number of people who are in a position to contribute to relief funds, but everybody who in any way comes into contact with children, that is to say the vast majority of mankind--may be in a position to help forward the movement."[10]
Jebb created an initial draft for what would become the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1923. It contained the following five criteria:
These five points were adopted by the League of Nations in 1924 and was thus known as the Declaration of Geneva. This was the first important assertion of the rights of children as separate from adults, and began the process that would lead to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations in 1989.[4]
Following the atrocities of World War II, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. However, many felt the rights of children needed to be addressed in further detail with a separate document.
In November 1959, the UN General Assembly altered Jebb's initial criteria in order to produce the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This consisted of ten non-binding principles for states to follow in order to work in the best interests of the child. However, this 1959 Declaration was not legally binding and was only a statement of general principles and intent.[11] In 1989, however, it was adopted by the UN General Assembly. On September 2, 1990 it became international law.[11]
The Convention consists of 54 articles that address the basic human rights children everywhere are entitled too: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.[11] The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.
Today, the Convention serves as the basis for all Save the Children's work. It has been signed into law in nearly every country around the world, except Somalia and the United States.[12]
The Every One Campaign was started in October 2009 as a result of the Millennium Development Goals created in 2000. The 4th goal aims to reduce the child mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. Save the Children is working to achieve this goal through their Every One Campaign and their seven step program stating:[13]
Rewrite the Future is Save the Children's first global campaign involving all 28 members of the Save the Children Alliance. Beginning in 2006, the campaign focuses on obtaining equal and quality education for children who are unable to attend school due to conflict or war. The campaign is focused in 28 states where armed conflict is particularly relevant including Afghanistan, Angola, Colombia Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Uganda.[14]
In 2008, Save the Children surpassed its goal of improving educational standards for eight million children by reaching over 10 million.
Save the Children is an international umbrella organization, with 29 national organizations serving over 120 countries.[15]
All members of the alliance are bound by the International Save the Children Alliance Bylaws which includes The Child Protection Protocol and Code of Conduct. These set a standard for common values, principles, and beliefs.[15]
The Save the Children website states that the member organizations work towards achieving four key initiatives:
Save the Children helps to fund, and is aided with funds raised by, the national will-making scheme Will aid, in which participating solicitors waive their usual fee to write a basic will and in exchange invite the client to donate to charity.[16]
In 1969, Save the Children UK commissioned film director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett to make The Save the Children Fund Film.[17] The resulting film was unacceptable to the organisation because they felt it presented their work in an unfavourable light. They refused to pay for the film and tried to have it destroyed, out of concern that it would damage their reputation. Loach and Garnett took legal action to get paid. Eventually a legal agreement was arrived at which involved the material being deposited in the National Film Archive. The legal battle nearly left Kestrel Films, Loach and Garnett's organization, bankrupt. In 2011, roughly 42 years later, it was shown to the public for the first time in decades.
|
|||||||||||