Care, Upbringing and Educational Initiatives of the Women’s Civic Work Union for Children and Youth

Abstract

The Women’s Civic Work Union was one of the largest women’s organizations in interwar Poland. The union’s aspiration was the renewal of the Polish nation by deepening Jozef Pilsudski’s state-building idea. In this trend, women engaged in a number of activities with a social dimension, strongly emphasizing the need to work for the benefit of the youngest. The aim of the article
is to indicate the initiatives of the Women’s Civic Work Union focused on caring, upbringing and educational activities carried out for children and youth in Poland between the wars. It discusses exemplifications of activities undertaken as part of institutional forms of care and upbringing, carried out in free time during the day and during days free from school, and provided as emergency aid. The diversity of the presented forms of ZPOK’s activity was dictated primarily by the enormous needs of the youngest members of society and the response to the difficulties they had to face. The scope of social activities, which was attempted to cover the largest possible group of children requiring appropriate support, should be considered impressive. The presented initiatives played an important role in helping and strengthening the newly reborn state, especially since the times in which they were undertaken were not easy, both for social, as well as political and economic reasons.