In the service of the Red Cross

Extract

Two events of current interest give us cause to ponder on the significance of service to the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and the Red Lion and Sun. The first is the adoption by the twenty-third International Red Cross Conference, which met recently in Bucharest, of a resolution on the “Mission of the Red Cross”; the other is the commemoration this year of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Henry Dunant's birth. On this 8th of May, however, World Red Cross Day will not only be devoted as in the past to the memory of Dunant, but also to the activities throughout the world of the voluntary workers in the institution which he founded, and their work for the promotion of peace. The resolution in question underlines the “extreme importance” of the work carried out by National Societies “in the encouragement of social responsibility and voluntary service among their members”.