Social Workers - 1 - Henri Dunant (1828-1910)

The International Red Cross Association is an Organization that seeks to alleviate human suffering, particularly through disaster relief and aid to war victims. It consists of more than 150 independent national societies in most countries, with central Head Quarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The IRCA is staffed largely by volunteers. The name comes from is symbol: a red cross on a white background. The IRCA received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917 and 1944. The organization is known as the Red Crescent in most Muslim countries.

Jean Henri Dunant the founder member of the International Red Cross Association was a French, born in Geneva, Switzerland, on the 8th May 1825. As his father was a rich businessman, Henri’s childhood was a very happy and comfortable one. He had an excellent education in colleges in Switzerland and France, and travelled widely as a young man. In most of his trips abroad, he perceived that the life of a lot of people around the world was far more different from the affluent life he led. Their life was one of poverty, ill health, injustice that lacked even the barest necessities.

The IRCA had its origin in a war. In 1859 the Austrians and the Italians were at war in Solferino, Italy. One day in June 1859 the Austrians retreated after a battle that continued for 12 hours. Many soldiers were killed by the victor. A large number of wounded soldiers were left untreated with no food or water. They suffered and died helpless in agony. Many dead soldiers were just forgotten with no means to have their relatives informed about their fate.

Jean Henri Dunant who happened to visit the battleground of Solferino in order to meet king Napoleon III, saw the plight of the soldiers, with his own eyes. He walked all over the whole battleground looking at blood, broken and mutilated limbs and listening to heart-rendering groans of the wounded and the dying. Dunant left Solferino with the resolution that he would do something to change the pitiable situation.

He arrived at Castiglione a close by village and set up a voluntary organization to supply food and medicine to the suffering soldiers on Solferino battleground. He went there with few others, and dressed the wounds of the fallen soldiers. Not only men and women of Castiglione but also the girls and boys accompanied Dunant to the battleground and attended on the wounded. The rotting dead bodies were buried after proper religious rites and a few chapals were transformed into temporary hospitals.

Dunant experienced the horrors of war personally, and when he returned home, he wrote a book tittled ‘A Memory of Solferino.’ In the book he included pitiable memories of what he saw there. In it he showed how volunteer groups selected from neutral countries could be employed to carry out treatment and supplying food and medicine in a battleground. Apart from them, he showed how the relations of the soldiers could be kept informed, and how last rites could be conducted properly. He asserted firmly that neither the fallen soldiers, nor the rescue parties, the medical teams, and the people who gather information for the relatives of the fallen soldiers, should be attacked by any party in the battle field.

Four Swiss people who read Dunant’s book got together with him and they founded the ‘International Committee for Relief to the Wounded’, in 1863. The present IRCRCS (Red Cross and the Red Crescent) were born out of that committee.

Almost all the countries of the world who recognized the importance of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent extended their assistance and cooperation to the great humanitarian organization with no hesitation.

Jean Henri Dunant was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1901. The single organization of the world that won the largest number of Nobel Prizes is the IRCRC.

Dunant passed away on the 30th October 1910 in Geneva, Switzerland peacefully.

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