Save the Children

Save the Children
Founder	Eglantyne Jebb
Type	NGO
Slogan	"We save children’s lives. We fight for their rights. We help them fulfill their potential."
Sponsored by	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dutch Postcode Lottery, Hewlett Foundation

The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organisation that promotes children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries. It was established in the United Kingdom in 1919 in order to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities, as well as providing emergency aid in natural disasters, war, and other conflicts.

In addition to the UK organisation, there are 29 other national STC organisations who are members of Save the Children International, a global network of nonprofit organisations supporting local partners in over 120 countries around the world.

Save the Children promotes policy changes in order to gain more rights for young people especially by enforcing the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Alliance members coordinate emergency-relief efforts, helping to protect children from the effects of war and violence. Save the Children has general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

CIA False Vaccine Campaign in Pakistan

In 2011, Save the Children was exposed in an operation involving a fake doctor with links to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The doctor, Shakil Afridi, ran a fake polio vaccination campaign in the northwestern city of Abbottabad, allegedly to confirm the presence of former al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden for the CIA. (According to the official narrative, Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.) In 2012, Afridi was arrested by Pakistani security forces and jailed for treason.

In 2015, Pakistan ordered the organization out of the country. "We have been monitoring various international and local NGOs and Save the Children was found working against the interest of Pakistan," an official from the Interior Ministry stated. But the Interior Minister soon had to lift this ban after international (including from the U.S. State Department) and domestic (NGO) pressure.

Global board

The international board oversees STC's global strategy and programmes. Global board members are all from big corporations, including hedge funds, junk food peddlers, oil companies etc

Inappropriate manager behavior

In February 2018 former Save the Children UK chief executive Justin Forsyth resigned from UNICEF to avoid image damage to the charities. Three complaints of inappropriate behaviour towards female staff were made against Forsyth whilst he worked at Save the Children UK.

Executive team salaries

The current CEO, Inger Ashing earned £188,990 in 2019.

Former CEO Helle Thorning-Schmidt, had "the global experience and drive" to "achieve the most for poor children". For this, she received £284,000 a year plus expenses. Thorning-Schmidt was member of Parliament and the Leader of the Social Democratic Party for 10 years. She was a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, and previously worked as an international adviser to the Confederation of Trade Unions.

Latest emergency operations

In 2014 Save the Children responded to over 103 humanitarian crises around the world reaching over 4 million children affected by conflicts, disease outbreaks, floods and cyclones. To be noted is that these areas are also of interest to the British government:

• In Ebola affected Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia we reached over 867,000 people with life-saving care, awareness-raising and hygiene kits.
• Since fighting first broke out in Syria in March 2011, the crisis has unfolded to become a large-scale civil war, affecting more than 16 million people across the region, including millions of children. So far, the fighting has tragically claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people. Save the Children is working with Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, providing families with the basics they need, including food, clothing and shelter for children and families who are facing extremely difficult conditions. We are working to ensure children now living as refugees still have access to school, emotional support and recreational activities. We have so far reached more than 2.5 million people, including 1.6 million children.
• STC prepares children and their communities to reduce the impact of extreme weather. And we have relief supplies ready in vulnerable areas. Across South East and East Asia we are currently responding to 16 emergencies.
• In West and Central Africa we are responding to 16 emergencies reaching over 5 million people.

Close to Tony Blair

In November 2014, Tony Blair was honoured with STC's Global Legacy award despite the fact he was responsible for pushing a decade of sanctions against Iraq, before invading the country in 2003, actions which killed hundred of thousands of children.

In an internal STC letter signed by almost 200 members of staff, they branded the award “morally reprehensible” and a “betrayal” and called for it to be withdrawn. They wrote that they felt it also endangered the charity’s “credibility globally” and demanded an investigation into their decision-making process.

The award also sparked speculation over the charity’s independence, in light of its links to the former British Prime Minister. Justin Forsyth, the UK chief executive of STC, used to be a Special Adviser to Blair, while Jonathan Powell, who is also on the STC board, was his former chief of staff.

Fergus Drake, STC’s director of global programmes, advised president Paul Kagame as part of the consultancy team in Blair’s Rwandan office.

Meanwhile, director of policy and advocacy Brendan Cox was a Special Adviser to Gordon Brown.

Richard Warburton, director of media for STC, denied the problem: “Save the Children has, and always will be, an impartial organisation that is above party politics. The background of our staff and their previous employment does not affect the organisation’s impartiality. We have strong links across the political spectrum.”

Asked if Sir Alan Parker, the chairman of Save the Children UK and PR company Brunswick Communications, a Blair associate, had put the former PM forward for the prize, he confirmed he was “not part of the process”.

Blair was among the guests at Parker’s wedding in 2008.

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End
Brendan Cox	Director of Policy and Advocacy	June 2011	September 2015
Justin Forsyth	CEO	September 2010	29 January 2016
Paul Gore-Booth	Chairman	1970	1976
Kirsty McNeill	Director of Policy and Advocacy	September 2015
Helle Thorning-Schmidt	CEO	4 April 2016

 

Sponsors

Event	Description
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Very influential and rich foundation established to take leadership of global health.
Dutch Postcode Lottery
Hewlett Foundation	Huge foundation setting the agenda by funding lots of deep state projects.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Index on Disgrace	Article	22 April 2018	Craig Murray	"We thus have the extraordinary spectacle of a coordinated government and media onslaught on anybody who doubts their entirely fact free narratives. Public trust in the state and corporate media hits new lows, which is the happy part of this story."
Document:Peak Kinnock	Article	19 September 2016	Craig Murray	"11,000 people saving £2 a month might not save a dying little baby, but would exactly pay the £264,000 per year salary of Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chief Executive of Save the Children and wife of MP Stephen Kinnock. Misery for some is a goldmine for others."
Document:The official death toll in Gaza is a lie. The casualty numbers are far, far higher	blog post	31 July 2024	Jonathan Cook	In July 2024, researchers to The Lancet medical journal very conservatively estimated that the total number of Gazans who will die over the coming months – not just from bombs but as a result of the lack of medical care, insanitary conditions and famine – is 186,000, or 8 per cent of the population.

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