Children's Day is a date celebrated in different countries. According to the history and meaning of the celebration, each country chooses a certain date and certain types of celebration to remember its minors. At the same time, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) agreed on November 20 to celebrate Children's Day.
This date was chosen because on that same day, in 1959, UNICEF made the Declaration of the Rights of the Child official. This document established a series of valid rights for all children in the world, such as food, love and education. In the Brazilian case, the attempt to standardize a date for children took place a few decades earlier.
In 1923, the city of Rio de Janeiro, then capital of Brazil, hosted the 3rd South American Child Congress. The following year, taking advantage of the recent holding of the event, federal deputy Galdino do Valle Filho drafted the bill that established this new commemorative date. On November 5, 1924, Decree No. 4867 established October 12 as the official date for commemorating Children's Day.
However, the date did not become an immediate unanimity. Only in 1955, the date began to be celebrated from a marketing campaign developed by a toy company called Estrela. First, Eber Alfred Goldberg, the company's commercial director, launched the so-called “Robust Baby Week”. The campaign's success soon attracted the attention of other entrepreneurs linked to the toy industry.
With this, they launched an advertising campaign promoting the “Children's Week” with the aim of boosting sales. The good results made this same group of businessmen revitalize the commemoration of “October 12th” created by deputy Galdino. As a result, Children's Day became part of the country's calendar of commemorative dates.
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By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
Children's Day Special - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "The Origin of Children's Day"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/dia-das-criancas/a-origem-dia-das-criancas.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
