The history of the Red Cross begins with an initiative of a man named Henry Dunant (from Geneva, Switzerland) who, with the help of local women, helped care for wounded soldiers at the battle of Solferino in 1859.   Dunant then lobbied political leaders to take more action to protect war victims. His two main ideas were for a treaty that would oblige armies to care of all wounded soldiers and for the creation of national societies that would help the military medical services.” [1]

Dunant put down his ideas in a campaigning book, A Souvenir of Solferino, published in 1862. The Geneva Public Welfare Society formed a working group which first met in February 1863. An international conference with 16 nations convened in October 1863, to formalize the concept of national societies.  National Red Cross Societies formed and the Committee of Five in Geneva eventually became the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The standard emblem to identify medical personnel on the battlefield as agreed to be a red cross on a white background, the reverse of the Swiss flag.

On August 22, 1864, delegates from a dozen countries signed the first Geneva Convention, the founding text of contemporary international humanitarian laws, this convention made it compulsory for armies to care for all wounded soldiers, whatever side of the battle they were on.

“Dunant died in 1910. By then, in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa, the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions had taken root. Both were to be put to a severe test during the First World War.” [3]

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded in 1919 in Paris in the aftermath of World War I. Originally called the League of Red Cross Societies, we were the brainchild of Henry Davison, the president of the American Red Cross War Committee.  It’s mission to ” improve the health of people in countries that had suffered greatly during the war. It also sought to improve existing Red Cross Societies and promote the creation of new ones around the world.” [2]

“Within months of its creation, the League had launched a campaign to counter a massive typhus epidemic in Eastern Europe. Shortly after, it launched appeals in the wake of the Russian famine of 1921 and the Great Kanto earthquake in Japan in 1923.”  And so begins the coordinatied “war on disease”.

Today Geneva, Switzerland is still the home of international organisations.