About six months ago the activity of the Syrian woman moved out to the countryside, which stands in the most urgent need of her, when a distinguished elite of the noble ladies and men of Damascus founded an association in the Western Ghouta district of the Damascus governorate and gave it the name of the women's "Child Protection Society," making its headquarters the village of Dummar; other branches will be established for it in the villages of the Ghouta according to need and the society's means.

Among its foremost aims:

1 — The protection of the child from birth until the end of the third year of his life, from both the health and the social standpoints.

2 — Working to lower the rate of deaths in the Syrian countryside.

3 — Helping to bring up the child by modern methods and to safeguard his health.

4 — Working to improve the child's nutrition.

5 — Caring for the mother in the times of pregnancy,

childbirth, and nursing, and helping her to preserve her health so as to rear a generation strong and sound of constitution.

The society has been in touch several times with the Ministry of Health, the Directorate of Social Affairs, and the private charitable institutions and associations, to obtain their help and to cooperate together in the fields of charity and benevolence.

The president of this society, the wife of Khalil al-Nabki, assisted by the rest of the society's members, has begun delivering lectures and talks to mothers, distributing illustrated pamphlets, and showing motion-picture films on the effective means of improving the offspring and of rearing, feeding, and caring for the child and safeguarding his health in a way that guarantees his growth, and of showing the paths that keep him safe from disease.

If this blessed step — the first of its kind in Syria — proves anything, it proves the Syrian woman's realization of the importance of the countryside in the life of the nation and in the raising of its level.