The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

nonsectarian Nonsectarian institutions are secular institutions or other organizations not affiliated with or restricted to a particular religious group. Academic sphere Examples of US universities that identify themselves as being nonsectarian include Adelp ...

associate member organization of the

Unitarian Universalist Association Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations. It was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, bot ...

that works to provide

disaster relief Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

and promote

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

around the world. UUSC was founded in May 1940 as the Unitarian Service Committee with the intended purpose of assisting European refugees endangered by Nazi persecution. The founding director was Robert Dexter, who had served in a diplomatic role for the

American Unitarian Association The American Unitarian Association (AUA) was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it consolidated with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Uni ...

for more than a decade and had been moved, in particular, by the plight of refugees in Czechoslovakia, a country with a large Unitarian congregation. The organization established an office in Lisbon and the first American Unitarians to be posted there were Rev. Waitstill Hastings Sharp, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, and his wife Martha. Later, Rev. Charles Joy,

Elisabeth Anthony Dexter Elisabeth Anthony Dexter was a social historian who contributed the longest-lived service in southern Europe on behalf of Jewish refugees of any American churchwoman during World War II. Early life and career Elisabeth Williams Anthony was born o ...

and Noel Field were recruited to work in the organization's Lisbon and Marseille offices and they, along with many refugee volunteers, expanded the relief and emigration programs. The Sharps were posthumously honored by Israel in 2006 as the second and third Americans to be added to the list of

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to s ...

. The organization’s first board of directors was chaired by William Emerson, the former dean of the MIT School of Architecture. Other board members included Harold Hitz Burton, mayor of Cleveland, Ohio and a future Supreme Court justice; Percival Brundage, senior partner in the Price Waterhouse and future budget director for President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Louise Wright, chairwoman of the voters department of government and foreign policy for the League of Women Voters."The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee"
, by Roger Fritts, February 9, 1997, Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, Bethesda, Maryland Today, UUSC is involved in coordinating humanitarian efforts and documenting human rights abuses worldwide. Its programs focus on Migrant Justice, Climate/Disaster Justice, and International Justice and Accountability. In recent years, the organization has been active in addressing a range of issues, including U.S. immigration policies, climate change and environmental justice for Indigenous communities, supporting civil society organizations in Haiti, providing aid to communities affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and advocating for accountability for human rights abuses and war crimes committed by the Burmese military against ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya population.

References

External links

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee web site

Recent press coverage of the UUSC

UUSC's latest news & press releases
* {{Authority control Human rights organizations based in the United States Organizations established in 1940 Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts Unitarian Universalist organizations

See also

References

External links