2013150th Ann of the International Red Cross - Presentation Pack

Commemorating the 150th anniversary from the founding of the Red Cross in 1863 by Henry Dunant.

The Red Cross was founded in 1859 when Henry Dunant, a young Swiss businessman witnessed the horrors of the Battle of Solferino. Around 40,000 men of the armies of imperial Austria and the Franco-Sardinian alliance lay dead or wounded. The lack of medical attention also cost the lives of many. Seeing this, Dunant organised local people to soothe soldiers' wounds and to care for them by feeding and comforting them.

In 1863 he joined forces with five other men in Geneva to set up the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, later to become the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its emblem, a red cross on a white background is the inverse of the Swiss flag. A year later, 12 governments adopted the first Geneva Convention, offering care for the wounded, while defining the medical services as 'neutral' on the battlefield.

The Red Cross continues to work in very difficult conditions while adapting to new forms of armed conflicts. Its work is carried out in adverse conditions shaped by the use of new weapons and technologies. New challenges are ever present however a lack of respect for international humanitarian law is among the biggest challenge that the organisation and other similar humanitarian NGOs face today.

Dunant was born in Geneva in 1828 and came from a devout and charitable Calvinist family. During his life he went from riches to rags but his passion towards humanitarian aid was a sure constant in his life. The Red Cross is a true monument of Dunant's life and in 1901 he was selected as a joint recipient of the first Nobel Prize for Peace.