Happy birthday Eglantyne! Who is Eglantyne Jebb?

Sometimes a person cannot solve all the impasses alone. Sometimes a "fairy godmother", a hero, a compassionate and persistent activist who walks ahead of her time needs to touch the acute problems of hunger, war, destruction, migration, and many more, from miles away and find the keys to the locked doors.

When children's rights are mentioned, one of the first "good fairies" that comes to mind is undoubtedly Eglantyne Jebb. Very few people can be remembered with the same longing, love, and appreciation for more than a hundred years.

Eglantyne, a British social reformer, educator, philanthropist, social activist, and economist who was born into a wealthy family in the United Kingdom on 25 August 1876 and died in Switzerland on 17 December 1928 due to thyroid problems, was among her many valuable "hats". She is considered an idol for those interested in children's rights. She is also the founder of "Save the Children".

Eglantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) was a British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organisation at the end of the First World War to relieve the effects of famine in Austria-Hungary and Germany. She drafted the document that became the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

Eglantyne, who said, "The only international language that the whole world will understand is the scream of a child," is a rights advocate who, more than a century ago, stated with courage far beyond her time that all children have rights and that these rights should be recognized at the level of international law, and put these words into action.

Although she comes from a wealthy family, Eglantyne's activism, which opposes the division of people into rich and poor, comes from her family: Her mother, Eglantyne Louisa Jebb, was determined to protect traditional handicrafts, which were under threat as a result of urbanization and the increasingly mechanical production in England at that time. She founded the "Home Arts and Industries Association" to spread arts and crafts among young people in rural areas and to fund schools in this field.

Her sister, Louisa, helped establish the Women's Land Army during World War I, which allowed women to work in agriculture instead of men who were drafted into the army.

Her other sister, Dorothy Buxton, is married to a Labor Party politician and joins the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, keeping a keen eye on the foreign press during the First World War. At that time, the two sisters saw the photos in the newspapers of children suffering from hunger in enemy countries such as Germany and Austria, and it hit them right in the middle of their conscience.

After initially studying to be a primary school teacher in the field of history at Lady Margaret Hall, which was established as the first college within Oxford that women could enter, and then after a year of experience in a school, Eglantyne thought that this profession was not suitable for her. The protest personality manifests itself while still at school. While she was boarding at Lady Margaret Hall, she removed all the furniture from her room, including the carpet. She leaves only a bed, a table, and a sink. Because, according to him, “all issues related to luxury and spending are very difficult”.

With the guidance of the economics teacher Mary Mashall, whom she met when she moved to Cambridge, she joined the "Charity Organization Society", which aimed to bring a modern scientific aspect to philanthropic affairs, and research she conducted on the social fabric of Cambridge-led to the publication of a book on this subject in 1906. In the book, she advises young people to take part in voluntary social work and to light a candle for the darkness themselves.

While the First World War was ongoing, she traveled to the Balkans on behalf of the Macedonian Relief Fund; When she saw the situation of children waiting in the cold for hours for a bowl of soup, a thousand pieces of her heart broke.

On the other hand, while the economies of Germany and Austria-Hungary were about to collapse under the weight of war and blockade, she was greatly concerned about the chronic hunger experienced by children in these countries.

Meanwhile, the Council to Fight Hunger was established in 1919 as a pressure group for the British government to end the blockade, and Eglantyne, who could not bring herself to remain silent about the deaths of 800 children from hunger every week in Germany alone, immediately joined this group and declared in Trafalgar Square, "Millions of children will die as a result of our blockade." While she was distributing leaflets saying "in the grip of hunger", her objection against this situation, which she saw as essentially a violation of children's human rights, led to her arrest.

However, when she appears before the judge, Eglantyne defends her objection so strongly that the judge is convinced and pays the fine assessed for her out of her own pocket.

Eglantyne is a passionate rights defender who is devoted to her cause, even breaking the law when necessary, and who has the power to create a serious change in the course of history.

On the other hand, the two sisters are convinced that just distributing leaflets in the squares will not do much good. In the same year, they established the Save the Children Fund at the Royal Albert Hall in London to raise money from the British public for German and Austrian children. In her legendary speech here, she says: “It is impossible for us, normal people, to watch children die of hunger but not make any effort to save them. We have one goal: to save as many children as possible. “We have only one rule: to help them, regardless of their country and religion.”

The "benefit" of the fund established by Eglantyne and her sister Dorothy is the payment made by the judge on her behalf in return for Eglantyne's prison sentence.

The fund became so successful thanks to Eglantyne's "save the children" call of Eglantyne, who was called "White Flame" due to her dedication and passion for her cause, the page-long advertisements they placed in The Times, and the short films they shot about starving children and were shown in movie theaters, that it and her sister Dorothy laid the foundations of the “International Save the Children Union” in Geneva in 1920.

According to Eglantyne, international aid to children benefits everyone; because in this way people come together around common action and have a chance to learn ways to work together.

Expanding its borders over time, Save the Children undertakes numerous initiatives to improve the welfare of children in Africa and Asia, from sending a cargo ship to deliver tons of food and medical supplies to hundreds of thousands of children dying of food deficiency in Russia.

In the early 1930s, she started her first programs in Africa by opening a "child welfare center" in Ethiopia; Then, with the Italian occupation of the country in 1935, she began to help refugees in Somaliland, which was under British rule.

Then, from projects providing education and safe living opportunities to orphans and orphans in Malaya (now Malaysia), to helping children in Asia, to establishing milk centers, health clinics, and playgrounds for children damaged during the Korean War, and to France after the end of World War II. Numerous initiatives range from working with refugees and displaced children in devastated areas of Yugoslavia, Poland, and Greece.

Towards the end of her 40s, Eglantyne turned to the field of "child rights" and headed to Geneva with a child rights document she designed herself.

In this short five-article document, announced in 1923 and titled "Declaration of the Rights of the Child", explains in detail the duties of the international community, with which it is important to cooperate in the recognition and implementation of children's rights: Feeding the hungry child, treating the sick child, giving a helping hand to the child with mental retardation. 

In short, the idea of children's rights becomes universal.

This Document, based on the main idea that "Minimum attention should be paid to children in the world", was adopted by the League of Nations as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1924 and became the inspiration for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was a milestone in giving children's rights a legal basis in 1989.

Today, Eglantyne's legacy, Save the Children, the world's second oldest humanitarian organization after the International Committee of the Red Cross and the largest institution working entirely on children's rights, continues to reach millions of children within the framework of many projects and programs. Save the Children is currently active in 120 countries.

The Organization, which was chaired by Princess Anne, the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, in the early 1970s, has been carrying out a global campaign to reduce maternal and child deaths since the 1980s; Education, prevention, and treatment projects on this subject continue. So much so that between 1990 and 2011, deaths of children under the age of five decreased from 12 million to less than 7 million.

Save the Children provides nutritional aid to children suffering from food shortages in Africa; Based on the fact that one in five children in the world lives in conflict-affected areas, projects are being carried out specifically for children who are victims, displaced, and refugees in the Syrian civil war; She becomes the "fairy godmother" of children who are victims of the Ebola epidemic, severe earthquakes and tsunamis; It carries out campaigns in the fields of child marriage and education of refugees.

Happy birthday Eglantyne. Thank you Save the Children. Good thing you are not alone in your struggle for existence, children of the world...