History of ABC Children’s Aid
In 1985 a young nurse from Iceland, Gudrun Margret Palsdottir, decided to travel around the world. While travelling through Central-America she witnessed much poverty which touched her deeply. She concluded that people that poor would only try to survive so they would never buy themselves a book. She started to buy books and look for the those in most need to give the books to. While she was handing out the books she discovered that many people were illiterate. That touched her even more so she decided to dedicate her life to changing such circumstances. In 1988 ABC Children’s Aid was established by eight Icelanders. The first project was to finance literacy projects among Indians in Mexico. In 1990 ABC started to help children in the Philippines to go to school. That became the main focus of ABC besides giving shelter to homeless children.
ABC Children’s Aid International was launched February 1 2007. At the first meeting there were gathered people from Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The launch of ABC Faroe Islands was the first step to extend the operations of ABC support-base organizations out side of Iceland. In conjunction with the launch of ABC Faroe Islands the decision was made to launch ABC International as an umbrella organization for the operations of ABC globally.