Save the Children

Russian famine

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.^[9] Their mission was thus changed to "an international effort to preserve child life wherever it is menaced by conditions of economic hardship and distress".^[7]

From 1921 to 1923, Save the Children created press campaigns, propaganda movies, and feeding centers in Russia and Turkey to accommodate and educate thousands of refugees. They began to work with several other organizations 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.^[3]

At home, the Daily Express criticized the Fund's work, denying the severity of the situation and arguing they should be helping their 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 to Russia with 600 tons of relief supplies. Over 157 million rations were given out, saving nearly 300,000 children. Improved conditions meant Save the Children's Russian feeding program was able to be closed in the summer of 1923, after having won international acclaim.^[3][10]

Second World War

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 Nazi concentration camps survivors. During this 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.^[7]

Continuing crises

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, and the opening of new work in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in response to the decline of the British empire.^[7]

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 was repeated, with great success in fundraising.

Disasters in Ethiopia, Sudan, and many other world hotspots led to appeals that brought public donations on a huge scale, and a consequent expansion of the organization'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.^[7]

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, new cases outnumbered the available hospital beds in the country. Save the Children worked with the UK government's Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence to build and run a 100-bed treatment center in Sierra Leone, as well as support an Interim Care Center in Kailahun for children who had lost their families to Ebola.^[11]

The Save the Children Fund Film

In 1969, Save the Children UK commissioned film director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett to make The Save the Children Fund Film. The resulting film was unacceptable to the organization because they felt it presented their work in an unfavorable light.^[14] Eventually a legal agreement arrived at which involved the material being deposited in the National Film Archive.^[14][15] In 2011, roughly 42 years later, it was shown to the public for the first time.^[14][16]

Expulsion from Pakistan

In July 2011, the Guardian uncovered a fake vaccination program by the CIA.^[17] It then emerged that Dr. Shakil Afridi, the person organizing the CIA's "vaccinations", had claimed that he was a Save the Children employee. In May 2012, Save the Children's country director for Pakistan, David Wright, revealed that the organization's work had been badly disrupted ever since Afridi had made his claim, with medicines held up for long periods at airports, staff unable to get visas, and so forth. Wright also charged that the CIA had breached international humanitarian law and risked the safety of aid groups worldwide.^[18] "It was a setback, no doubt," said Dr. Elias Durry, the World Health Organization's polio coordinator for Pakistan, a few months later.^[19] Later that year, in September, it was reported that the Pakistani government had requested Save the Children's foreign staff to leave the country,^[20] In January 2013, the Deans of twelve top US schools of public health sent a letter to President Obama protesting against the entanglement of intelligence operations in public health campaigns. The letter describes the negative and lasting impacts of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) use of a fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2011, which exacerbated the already persistent public mistrust of vaccines in the country.^[21]

The CIA's "vaccination program" sparked a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan against dozens of aid and health workers associated with various aid and health campaigns, with the UN-backed polio-vaccination drive repeatedly halted as a result.^[22][23][24] Up to eight polio vaccination workers were assassinated in the country during this backlash.^[25] In May 2014, the Obama administration announced that they would no longer use vaccination programs as a cover for CIA activities.^[24]

Pakistani investigators said in a July 2012 report that Shakil Afridi met 25 times with "foreign secret agents, received instructions and provided sensitive information to them."^[26] According to an early draft of a Pakistan Government report, which has not been publicly released, Afridi told investigators that the charity Save the Children helped facilitate his meeting with US intelligence agents although the charity denies the charge. The report alleges that Save the Children's Pakistan director at the time of the incident introduced Afridi to a Western woman in Islamabad and that Afridi and the woman met regularly afterward.^[27][28]

On 11 June 2015, Pakistani authorities ordered all Save the Children workers to leave Pakistan within 15 days, and the organisation's office in Islamabad was closed and padlocked.^[29] This saga has led to a high degree of distrust and scepticism against the validity of COVID-19 vaccines in Pakistan.^[30]

Complaints of inappropriate behaviour

The chief strategist of Save the Children UK Brendan Cox resigned in September 2015 over allegations of "inappropriate behaviour". The charity, Oxfam, temporarily suspended bids for government funds due to the scandal.^[31] Cox had previously denied any wrongdoing but finally admitted to inappropriate behaviour on 18 February 2018 and quit working for his two other charities.^[32][33]

On 5 March 2020, the Charity Commission published an investigation report that found there had been serious weaknesses in Save the Children's workplace culture, following a probe into the charity's response to allegations of misconduct and harassment against staff between 2012 and 2015. There were five complaints of sexual harassment and thirteen of bullying between 2016 and June 2018. Save the Children UK chief executive Justin Forsyth had three complaints of misconduct directed towards him by female staff, while Brendan Cox was publicly accused of sexual assault. The charity trustees had not been sent copies of an external report on corporate culture. Since then the charity has strengthened reporting and whistle-blowing policies that now permit anonymous staff complaints.^[31][34]

On 22 February 2018 Forsyth resigned from UNICEF to avoid damage to the charities.^[35]

On 11 September 2020, it was announced the charity could resume bids for government funding.^[36]

Logo font by Eric Gill

On 15 January 2022, it was announced that Save the Children would change the typeface in its logo, Gill Sans, due to its authorship in the 1920s by British artist Eric Gill, who was posthumously revealed to have documented the sexual abuse of his young daughters, an incestuous relationship with his sister and sexual experiments with his dog. An anonymous source told The Times that the organization had been previously warned of the typeface's origin before its adoption, and that the decision to change it was made one year prior. The organization effectively changed its logo that same year.^[37][38][39]

Allegations of bias in Gaza Conflict Response

Save the Children faced criticism from staff and observers over perceived bias and institutional racism during the Gaza crisis. Senior staff members denounced the organization for prioritizing Israeli hostages' concerns over the humanitarian crisis affecting Palestinian children in Gaza Strip in a widely shared internal letter. They accused the organization of failing to recognize Arab children amid ongoing violence and spoke about structural issues, including a lack of diversity among leadership and accusing them of a neo-colonial approach to aid. In response to the letter, Save the Children CEO Inger Ashing acknowledged the "long-standing issues" of diversity, equity and inclusion.^[40] More than 120 Save the Children staff in Palestine released an open letter accusing leadership of suppressing advocacy for Palestinian children to appease influential stakeholders. They cited incidents of censorship, including restrictions on addressing violations by Israeli forces during a deadly military operation in Gaza. Save the Children leadership defended the global sign-off policy as a standard applied to all conflict. ^[40]

Allegations of institutional racism

Save the Children has faced allegations of institutional racism. Critics have pointed to a lack of diversity among leadership roles and decision-making bodies, with concerns that the functional leads responsible for designing the restructuring processes were predominantly from the Global North and lacked representation reflective of the organization's diverse workforce and the communities it serves. While Save the Children implemented measures such as diverse selection panels and DEI training, staff expressed skepticism about the authenticity and impact of these initiatives. ^[40] In September 2024, the organization released a new global salary scale that was widely criticized for containing perceived systemic biases. These salary proposals were characterized as "inherently racist" by staff, citing stark disparities between pay for roles in the Global North and Global South. For example, comparable roles in Belgium and Sri Lanka were assigned vastly different pay scales, with the latter being far below local living standards and in some cases even below national minimum wages. National contract holders allegedly received no severance packages at all while employees in wealthier nations were offered more substantial redundancy terms.^[41]