'Redt een Kind'

In the autumn of 1959 the first ever live programme organized to raise funds for charity was broadcast on Dutch television. Donations were collected to demonstrate solidarity for the refugees who had fled the Algerian war of independence. This collection entitled Redt een kind [Save a child] has sunk into media history oblivion whereas the fund raising programme Open het dorp [Open the village] (1962) which followed exactly three years later is legendary and has been stored in the collective memory. This article researches and records the background and goals of and reactions to the 'Save a child' fund-raising event. Furthermore in the light of this event it endeavours to answer the question what role the relatively young medium of television played in Dutch society at the end of the 1950s.

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