Welcome to the Tree of Life!
New!
In June 2007, the UN announced the publication ”Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child”, in 2 volumes and a CD. The covers of these volumes show a sample of children´s paintings from the Tree of Life collection.
What is the Tree of Life?
It is the name of a collection of more than 7 000 paintings, drawings and texts by children (6-12 years) living in all parts of the world dealing with themes connected to the Tree of Life. The collecting started in 1970 and is still active.
Objectives
To convey these messages from children all over the world via exhibitions, lectures, publications – and websites - in order to reach out to schools, organisations, enterprises and individual persons – nationwide and globally.
Picture on the right:
Ahmed, 9 years, Middle East
Background
In 1970, Sylvia Lindström, then a chair-person of the Danderyd local section of Swedish Save the Children, started to collect the first items dealing with the themes of Tree of Life. She she was so taken by the paintings, drawings and texts that the children had sent to her that she continued to widen the net of contacts to make the collection grow and to give more opportunities for the messages of the children to be spread.
Sylvia Lindström writes:
”Listen! From the Tree you will hear the voices of children – the children are singing – and the song will grow to a mighty symphony that shall be heard all over the globe.”
From the book ”Tree of Life, the World seen through the eyes of a child” Stockolm 1978.
Tree of Life in a new century
All items – paintings, drawings and texts – are gifts from the children who made them to the organisation of Save the Children, Sweden.
Since 1994 The responsibility of the collection now lies with the Swedish Archive for Children´s drawings, Eskilstuna
During 2004-2007 all the material of Tree of Life were professionally registered, photographed and computerized by the Archive and is now accessible for research and publishing in contexts related to the ideas behind the Tree of Life and to the Rights of the Child as agreed upon in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.