International Year of the Child

An ambitious international effort to improve the lot of children everywhere on the planet. Proclaimed by a United Nations General Assembly resolution in 1976, the International Year of the Child began in 1979 with a relatively small number of countries implementing a variety of programs to improve the lot of their children— school milk for Kenyan children, establishment of legal centers for British children, children’s nutrition centers in Sri Lanka, and so on. The United States pledged to make education one of its priorities for American children.