Child health and welfare: enabling access to the Save the Children archives (360G-Wellcome-213003_Z_18_Z)

Child health and welfare: enabling access to the Save the Children archive This two-year project focuses on cataloguing and preserving the extensive archive of Save the Children (1919-2002), held at the University of Birmingham. Health and welfare of children is the guiding principle of this charity, established by sisters Eglantyne Jebb and Dorothy Buxton. Its objects being to: preserve child life; relieve child distress; promote child welfare; improve the conditions of child life. Jebb’s ‘Children’s Charter’, drafted in 1922, would later evolve into the ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’ as adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. The archive comprises 2,000 boxes including minutes, project reports and publications. Material documents the charity’s work in child health, nutrition and well-being both overseas and in the UK. The outcome of this project will be a fully searchable electronic catalogue. This will enable access and reveal the full research potential of this internationally significant collection. The project will establish an ongoing rolling programme to open up access to files once over 25 years old. Preservation activities are also included in this project, focusing on the repackaging of thousands of photographs and transparencies which provide visual support to the written record.