Sunday, March 23 last, was a memorable day for the child, organized by the Child Welfare Committee of the Lebanese Women's Union; and Her Ladyship the First Lady of Lebanon graced this "Day" with her exalted patronage.
The Woman's Voice is pleased to record some of the scenes it captured of this "Day," and offers thanks in its pages to the
noble benefactress Mrs. Zahia Salman, president and founder of the Child Welfare Committee and originator of the idea of "Children's Day," who toils night and day in the service of the deprived child and in directing the attention of countrywomen and countrymen toward him.
Most of the Lebanese cities took part in the celebration of Children's Day, and it was a splendid national
festival, in which students, boys and girls, and the youth of the parties and organizations roamed the streets, the quarters, and the shops, collecting the donations that will be spent on developing the projects aimed at caring for deprived children.
Yet the correspondent whom The Woman's Voice sent to follow the work of organizing this day noticed a most regrettable thing: the reluctance of the national institutes — such as the Hikma Institute, Zahrat al-Ihsan, and the Patriarchate — to take part in collecting donations, after the example of the foreign and other private institutes.
Below is the text of the splendid appeal with which Mrs. Zahia Salman closed the Child Week program on Radio Lebanon. And may the government see fit to make this "Day" an official national holiday:
To every daughter of my sex whom the Creator has honored with the blessing of motherhood! To the mother who enjoys ease of living with her children, whose little ones have never known the bitterness of deprivation!
The pictures published on the facing page show some scenes of the collecting of donations; they were taken by the photographer of our colleague Kull Shay'. The large picture shows Her Ladyship the First Lady of Lebanon flanked by Miss Ibtihaj Kaddoura and Mrs. Zahia Salman.