Save the Children was founded in 1919 by Eglantyne Jebb, in the UK. Angered by the plight of children starving as a result of the economic blockade due to the war, she vowed to help children in distress everywhere, regardless of their race, creed or religion, and declared “Every war, just or unjust, is a war against the children”.
In 1923, she drafted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the League of Nations, and led in turn to the UN Declaration of the Rights of the child in 1959 and finally the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. Today Save the Children and its partner organisations help to change the lives of millions of children in more than 70 countries. All programmes are supported by caring and concerned individual donors, corporate as also through bio-lateral and multi-lateral funds.
Save the Children work to achieve lasting benefits for children within the communities in which they live by influencing policy and practice based on its experience and study in different parts of the world. In all its work Save the Children endeavours to make a reality of children’s rights.
We look forward to a world which
> Respects and values each child.
> Listens to children and learns.
> Where all children have hoped and opportunity.
In a world, which continues to deny children their basic human rights we
> Champion the rights of all children to a happy, healthy and secure childhood.
> Put the reality of children’s lives at the heart of everything we do
> Together with children, we are helping to build a better world for present and future generations.
Our values underpin everything we do and is reflected in all our communications. We are Child-focused : We try to view the world through children’s eyes.
Ambitious but practical : We set our sights high for children, but we accept that our main responsibility is a practical one. We concentrate on making a real difference to children’s lives.
Independent : We are prepared to be radical and outspoken.
Open : We work without prejudice of any kind. We learn from our experiences, both our success and OUT failures and we share these widely and honestly.
Collaborative : We seek to work with others whenever we can, in order to achieve more for children.
Accountable : We are responsible to : children, their families and communities as well as to those who support our work. Professionally and financially, we are sound, scrupulous, efficient and effective.
A Team : We value diversity in those who work for Save the Children. We have to balance many expectations, but we support each other through our shared purposes.
Based on an assessment of the most important internal and external challenges which we face in our work. Save the Children has set itself the organisational goal of building a coherent, effective global programme, capable of bringing children to the centre of social development across the world.
Six core areas for -work have been identified as focal points for Save the Children’s work around the world
> Social Protection, Welfare and Inclusion.
> Food Security and Nutrition.
> Children and Work.
The International Save the Children Alliance
SC UK is part of a wide network of Save the Children organisations around the world – the International Save the Children Alliance, which aims to be a truly international movement for children.
The Alliance is a federation of member countries, which have similar vision, mission and values for children and have come together because :
> They share a common identity and are working towards the same goals.
> They have different strengths that can complement one another.
> They can be more effective and influential if they work together.
Save the children began working in India in the pre-independence days by providing relief during emergencies. The sponsorship programme targeting individual children started in the mid 1960s. In October 1975 Save the Children opened its office in India, in New Delhi.
Save the Children UK in India
Strategic Issues for Save the Children in India
There is a wide range of issues that adversely impact on children in India, making them especially vulnerable. However, Save the Children has chosen to address five core issues for the period of 2001-04. These issues are
> Children and Work > Quality Education > MV/AIDS
> Violence against Girls > Food Security
These have been selected because :
> We consider there is reasonable potential to affect significant change in children’s lives in India in the medium term.
> We can make good use of existing work and partnerships in India, and to develop new ways of working on these issues to broaden impact.
> They come within Save the Children’s global priorities and competencies so we can link with regional and global resources.
Cross cutting issues
Save the Children will strive to ensure that cross-cutting issues such as Disability, Gender Private Sector and Citizenship will be incorporated effectively into our work.
Child Rights Programming
Save the children is committed to children’s Rights Programming as an approach to all its work. The overall goal is to create an environment, which is respectful to children’s rights. We are therefore committed:
> To address the constraints on the realisation of children’s rights, to build up and sustain a constituency of support for children’s rights, including children themselves.
> To create effective accountability among those with formal obligations for the protection of children’s rights.
Within the Child Rights Programming framework, all activities are seen as contributions to achieving the overall goal, whether practical action, research, advocacy or any other initiative at different levels-local, national and international.
Working in partnership
Working in partnership is an important principle of Save the Children’s work approach. One of our key partners children, who are active and legitimate holders of rights which they can exercise themselves in accordance with their maturity and experience.
We implement our programme through partner organisations, by providing both funding and non-funding support. With them, we seek a two way process of learning and influencing.
Where We Work
Save the Children programmes are located in selected areas in seven states of India and managed by four Zonal Offices. The Central office in Delhi provides programme and administrative support to the zonal offices as well as representing Save the Children at the national level.
Issues we work on
“We believe that children have the right to quality education”
Objectives for the India programme
> To increase the enrolment, retention and benefits received for children, especially those most vulnerable and marginalised, in both primary and pre-primary schools, through a focus on child focused, gender sensitive and friendly learning environments.
> To increase the involvement of children and communities in determining education policy and influence in school management.
> To ensure that education policy makers will make a reality of the commitments made by the Indian government at the World Education Forum, through developing concrete action plans at National and State level to achieve their goals on equity, access and quality of education.
“We believe that children have the right to information and services to help them avoid HIV”.
Objective for the India Programme
> To reduce the vulnerability of children and young people to HIV infection in project intervention areas through informed choices.
> To influence policy makers on successful approaches to reduce children’s vulnerability.
> To ameliorate the impact of HIV/AIDS on children affected by or living with HIV/ AIDS in high prevalence areas through increased awareness and support from families, communities and state, through addressing discrimination, poverty, property rights and access to health and education services.
Children and work
“We believe that children have the right to be protected against dangerous and exploitative work”.
Objectives for the India Programme
> To ensure that working children’s voices are heard and that their views are integrated in interventions designed to combat hazardous and exploitative child labour.
> To reduce the number of children in hazardous and exploitative work through increased effectiveness of legislatiion, codes of conduct, improved working conditions and more responsible social attitudes and corporate practice. This will be based on a better unstanding of the realities of the lives of girls and boys at work, creation of choices and promoting access to quality education.
“We believe that children have the right not to go hungry in a world where there is enough food for everyone”.
Objectives for the India Programme
> To understand local coping mechanisms, and predict the impact of crisis on children in terms of nutrition, education and child work, promoting effective responses.
> To support national and state government and international agencies to ensure responses are effective to secure long-term benefits to children.
Violence against girls
“We believe that Children have the right to basic care and protection, and that children who are marginalised because of poverty, disability or gender should have the same opportunities as others”.
Objectives for the India Programme
> “To support girls and boys to analyses and to increase the awareness in the target communities of violence and discrimination against girls.
> To reduce violence in target communities through change of attitudes amongst boys, families, teachers, police, health workers, community and religious leaders and the media.
> To support girls and boys to monitor attitude change and violence levels.
“As long as we are young, we study, we are loved, we are given things. As we grow older our rights to these become less and less”.
Save the Children is organisationally mandated to respond to emergency situations and has a long and global experience of working in emergencies. The specific competencies developed are in health, food security, nutrition, tracing of separated children, education, disability and HIV/AIDS. While Save the Children does respond to the immediate needs of children and their families, it tries to do so with their development needs in mind.
In India we have a long experience of working on the issue of emergency, starting from the pre independence period. Lately we have been involved in responses to the Orissa Super Cyclone, persistent drought in Rajasthan, floods in West Bengal and Orissa and the Earthquake in Gujarat. In our interventions, we have been acutely conscious about the needs of the children and we have ensured that they are addressed. We aim to restore normalcy for children as quickly as possible. As part of our advocacy work during emergencies, we aim to place children on the agenda of other organisations too.
The Individual Child Support Programme (ICSP)
The sponsorship programme worked with individual children and started in the mid 1960s, by providing support in the form of financial input for appropriate education and counseling to the children who would have not been able to access facilities available to their peers elsewhere.
This form of support is being phased out since 1994 and will be completely discontinued after March 2003.
Save the Children UK
Director General, 17, Grove Lane, Camberwell
London SE 5 8RD, United Kingdom
Tel: 00 44-207- 7035400, Fax: 0044-207-7937610
Save the Children UK
A 20 Kailash Colony, II Floor, New Delhi – 110048
Tel: 011-2 6441174/75/76, Fax : 011-2 6443740
North Central India Office
20, Kiran Path, Surej Nagar, Civil Lines, Jaipur – 302 006
Rajasthan, Tel: 0141-2225078, Fax: 0141 -2226013
North West India Office
Shey Lompo House, Near Larimo Hotel,
Fort Road, Leh-194101, Ladakh
Tel : 01982-252135, Fax: 01982-251164
West Bengal Office
Flat I- C, 1st Floor
37 A, Garcha Road
Calcutta – 70001, West Bengal
Tel : 033 – 24741245
Fax : 033 – 24769478
South Zone Office
Plot No. 8, 1st Floor,
Aparajitha Housing Colony,
Ameerpet, Hyderabad – 500 016 (AP)
Tel : 040-26632384
For any further information you can contact us at [email protected]