Swiss Review 3/2018

23 Swiss Review / May 2018 / No.3 FSCA: A patron to Swiss children abroad for one hundred years The Foundation for Swiss Children Abroad was founded in 1917. It is still involved in organising holiday camps today. Founded in 1917 during the GreatWar by a group of people from Basel, the Foundation for Swiss Children Abroad ini- tially aimed to host young Swiss Abroad living inwar-torn countries where there were shortages and restrictions. In its current form, it organises several holiday camps each year to give Swiss children abroad the opportunity to get to know and appreciate their native country. The memory of the internment of Bourbaki’s army in 1871 was still very much alive in 1917. This welcome, which was remarkable for the solidarity it signified, meant that several generations of Swiss people saw it as their duty to help people in war-torn countries. One member of a fam- ily, which offered to take in a “child victim” on the spur of themoment in 1917, recalled in 2001 that his father hadwit- nessed the arrival of Bourbaki’s army in Switzerland dur- ing his youth. During the First World War, children in the nations at war were extremely vulnerable. They suffered terrible con- ditions, weremalnourished, poorly clothed and often badly educated. Switzerland began taking in children from re- gions blighted by war very early on in the conflict. By this time many Swiss had emigrate to elsewhere in Europe. Their children suffered just as much as those in the coun- tries where they were living. A decisionwas made to come to their aid. In 1917, a handful of philanthropists from Ba- sel welcomed 280 Swiss children fromGermany. The Swiss Confederation met the costs. This marked the birth of the Foundation for Swiss Children Abroad, which survived thanks to donations, grants and volunteer work. When peace returned, awareness of the needs of chil- dren in the regions devastated by war gave rise to the es- tablishment of the International Save the Children Union in Geneva in 1920. This was followed by the Geneva Decla- ration of the Rights of the Child in 1923. In 1924, in cooper- ation with Pro Juventute, around 3,000 children were wel- comed to the holiday camps. They came frombig cities and very poor areas where children’s illnesses were rife and tu- berculosis was prevalent. At the end of the 1920s, the foundation almost disap- peared due to a decline in donations, funding and hosts. The economic crisis of the 1930s sawneeds resurface.While Switzerlandwas also affected, it took in Swiss children from deprived backgrounds in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg and Brus- sels during this difficult period. Benefiting from the patri- otic spirit that emergedwith the national exhibition in 1939, the Foundation gradually transformed itself into a fund- raising organisation, enabling Pro Juventute to organise holiday camps and accommodation. These two partners ratified their cooperation by signing an agreement on 13 January 1940. The situation during the Second World War was very different to that during the Great War as this time Swit- zerland was encircled. Families continued to host Swiss children in poverty but the Foundation also started to or- ganise trips to Switzerland. Throughout the war, this en- abled a growing number of Swiss youngsters fromborder- ing countries to visit places of significance or importance in the country. In 1942, for example, 330 children from Germany, France, Italy and Hungary obtained the visas required thanks to the efforts of Heinrich Rothmund, the director of the federal aliens’ police division and in other respects a very controversial figure. The first ski campwas organised in 1944. It was visited by General Guisan. PHILIPPE VUILLEMIN educationsuisse Tel .+41 31 356 61 04 Fax+41 31 356 61 01 info@educationsuisse.ch www.educationsuisse.ch Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) Alpenstrasse 26 CH-3006 Berne Tel. +41 31 356 61 00 Fax +41 31 356 61 01 info@aso.ch www.aso.ch www.revue.ch www.swisscommunity.org Our partners: Foundation for Young Swiss Abroad Tel .+41 31 356 6116 Fax+41 31 356 61 01 info@sjas www.sjas.ch