Magyar László szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 166-169. (Budapest, 1999)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - Gergely Ferenc: Az országos Gyermekvédő Ligáról (1906—1950)

* Az 1989. február 9-én meg- vagy inkább újjáalakult Országos Gyermekvédő Ligának október elején már ezerháromszáz tagja volt. Kezdettől fogva lendületes, sokszínű munkát végeznek. Az újra és újra fogalmazott célok között szerepel „széles körű társadalmi mozgalom szervezése", a társadalmi gyermekvédelem — az újjászerveződő, új társadalmi alapokból fakadó, jövőbe tekintő, új módszerekkel és eszközrendszerrel kísérletező társadalmi gyermekvédelem — erőinek összefogása. Minderre oly nagy szüksége van a gyermekvédelemnek, mint egy korty tiszta vízre a sivatag vándorának. Mint ahogy hasznos ismételten végiggondolni a magyar gyermekvédelem eddigi történetét, így a ligáét is. Csak nyerhetünk vele. FERENC GERGELY teacher H-1126 Budapest Tartsay Vilmos u. 20. SUMMARY Te article summarises the history of the National Child Welfare League, which was recently reorganised in 1989. During the 19

th century the protection of children in Hungary was exclusively based on philanthropic societies and private founds lacking any governmental support. The VIII

th and XXI

th articles of the 1901 Act of Parliament raised the possibility of calling forth a national association. In 1906 this enactment was benefited by Count Gyula Andrássy and Dr. Sándor Karsai, when they organized the national Child Welfare League. The first chairman of the League was Baron Lipót Edelsheim, who headed the organisation till 1911. The objectives of the Association could be summed up as follows: prevention, protection and help for children older than 15 years. For these purposes both from private donations and governmental support a Child-Welfare Found was established, projects were designed to protect families, and a patronage-system was organized, which included educational programs explaining the anti-TBC movement of the age. From 1914 the League also aided war orphans. In 1917 they granted 80 000 orphans and after the war they prepared food relief programs and have sent many orphans to Western countries. From 1908 the League published its own periodical as well, the ChildWelfare Journal. Though during the 1910s the League had to compete with some rival associations (Stefánia Association, The Hungarian Red Cross, Hungarian Workers' Child-Welfare Association etc.), it preserved successfully its leading role even in spite of the attack charging the League with extreme liberalism and socialism. At the Congress of the Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants, held in Geneva in 1921, the Hungarian child welfare movement as a whole was represented still solely by the League. Between the inter-war period the League was increasingly supported by the government, and this consequently led to a gradual loose of its autonomy. In 1931 a ministerial commissioner was appointed at the head of the League, and in 1934 they received a new statute, and further reforms were introduced by the new director Dr. Pál Petri. Later even