!

!
!
!

NGO Spotlight: Unitarian Universalist - UN Office

A Voice for Human Rights
From an African partnership that helps orphans affected by HIV/AIDs to seminal
work promoting LGTBI rights at the UN, the Unitarian Universalist United Nations
Office (UU-UNO) has been a force for peace and social justice since its founding.
UU-UNO, which has United Nations consultative status through the Department
of Public Information (DPI), was founded in 1962 by the Unitarian Universalist
Association (UUA). UU-UNO extends DPI's mandate to communicate and garner
support for the mission of the UN through educational programs and publications,
including its annual Spring Seminar.
UUA has its own consultative status through the UN Economic Social and
Cultural Committee (ECOSOC), which is executed through the UU-UNO office. In
UU terms, this involves giving a voice to the voiceless by promoting the inherent
worth and dignity of every person! and respect for the interdependent web of all
existence. ECOSOC nonprofits are typically interested in impacting policy issues
at the United Nations.
For example, the UU-UNO has partnered since 2005 with the Queen Mothers in
the Manya Krobo region of Ghana, which is plagued with the highest rates of
AIDS on the continent. The situation has resulted in more than 3,000 Ghanaian
orphans who have no parents to protect or care for them. The project aligns with
the UNs Millennium Development Goals, aiming to combat HIV/AIDS, reduce
poverty, and support universal primary education and gender equality.

Every Child is Our Child

"#$$%!&'()$*!+,()!--.-/0!1(233!

Our program did not follow the usual model for AIDS
relief programs, who go in with a set agenda of what
they can offer, said Bruce Knotts, executive director
of the UU-UNO. Instead, we went asked the Queen
Mothers how we could help, and learned to render aid
as though we were raising these children as our own,
as they do. Thats how our Every Child is Our Child
program was born. Number one on the list was
making sure they could attend school.

The Queen Mothers are a group of women of royal descent who have been
responsible for the social wellbeing and training of Krobo youth for more than 200
years. Elected for their wisdom and maturity, these women have taken countless
orphans into their own homes or found homes for them within their communities,
ensuring they receive an education. The royal matriarchs receive little support in
this work and as more children in the region become vulnerable, their work
becomes increasingly difficult.
Today, the UU-UNO helps empower the Manya Krobo Queen Mothers to
educate and care for 120 children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS illness
or death. They attend one of three schools the UU-UNO works with in the region.
Although Ghana does not officially have school fees, in order to attend students
must have uniforms, shoes, school supplies, exam fees, and a school bag. The
ECOC Program provides these items for students, which enables them to attend
school, including classes in English,
mathematics, agricultural Sciences,
Ghanaian language and culture, prevocational skills, environmental studies,
religious and moral education, and
music and dance. Starting in the second
grade, the kids are exposed to
HIV/AIDS education and prevention.
UU-UNO also works with the National
and District Assembly Governments and Queen Mothers Association to provide
health insurance for the orphans and vulnerable children and their care-giving
families. This allows the child and their families to receive healthcare through the
Ghana National Health Care Plan.
This project was designed as the UU-UNOs contribution to the Millennium
Development Goals and will continue into the UNs Sustainable Development
Goals, Knotts said.

Fighting for the Human Rights of the LGBTI Community

--.-/0!4*$1,5$%(!6*#7$!8%'((1!9+,()!:,;$<!2(!()$!=%5!>?6@A!B0?A!C#:2%!D,E)(1!
F'%3$*$%7$!,%!=GHGI!

Prior to his current role as leader of the UU-UNO, Bruce Knotts spent 25 years
as a career diplomat at the U.S. State Department, serving in Washington D.C.,
Greece, Zambia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia. A married gay man, he joined the Unitarian
Universalists after trying many other spiritual paths. Raised in the Church of
Christ, along the way he explored many other religions, including Catholic,
Muslim, Buddhist and Quaker communities.
We had given up, said Bruce, noting that he and his husband had become
somewhat cynical about finding a faith-based
community that would reflect their values.
Although many had something to offer, they all
had limitations in terms of openly embracing gay
couples. Then a friend in D.C. urged me to try All
Souls in D.C. My husband and I fought all week,
because he was so reluctant to go and risk facing
the same distancing paradigm. But this service
was different.
As it happens, the senior minister of All Souls is
gay; and at the time, the associate minister and
social justice ministers were both lesbians. Knotts and his husband Isaac
Humphrie (pictured above), were taken with the UUs strong foundation in social
justice, and the diversity of its church members.
For the past seven years, the UU-UNO has been one of the only faith-based
organizations at the United Nations to strongly advocate for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights. When Bruce became

executive director of the UU-UNO in 2008, he worked to bring LGBTI human

rights to the forefront of the UN agenda.
When I first started bringing up LGBTI rights at the various meetings I was
attending at the UN, people would look at me like I had two heads, Knotts said.
Inexplicably, it was a taboo subject. So I took it upon myself to bring it up at
every opportunity. NGO members of other religious communities would support
my efforts behind the scenes, although most couldnt openly support LGBTI
rights. But we were determined to mainstream the topic, and eventually the tide
turned.
The UU-UNO demonstrated its
commitment to global LGBTI rights at the
September 2008 61st Annual UN DPINGO conference in Paris, which
celebrated the 60th anniversary of the
signing in Paris of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Bruce
hosted the first ever LGBT workshop,
opening a dialogue and giving voice to a
developing human rights movement that
demanded that universal human rights
apply to all human beings irrespective of
sexual orientation and/or gender identity
(SOGI).
On December 18, 2008, 66 UN Member
States called for an end to laws that
discriminated or criminalized people
based on sexual orientation and gender
identity. Following the General Assembly
meeting, the UN held a High Level meeting on SOGI rights which called for the
end of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
In March 2009, the U.S. expressed its support of the statement, followed by
affirmation from Turkey and the Ukraine. Numerous human rights experts over
the past 15 years have shed light on global abuses that target lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender persons, including killings, torture, rape, violence,
disappearances, and discrimination.
The UU-UNO has joined forces with LGBT Faith Asylum Network (LGBT-FAN), a
newly assembled group made up of faith leaders, asylum-seekers, activists,
LGBT community center staff, policy experts, and refugee resettlement workers
dedicated to helping people who flee to North America because of persecution in
their home countries based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

The Annual Spring Intergenerational Seminar

An educational cornerstone of the UU-UNO and
UUA is the annual Spring Seminar, which always
constellates a specific human rights theme. The
2015 seminar will focus on the criminal justice
system. Adults and youth will convene in New York
City for three days to learn at this intergenerational
workshop, which will cover the death penalty, Jim
Crow justice for indigenous peoples, and detention of migrants, Knotts said.
Restorative justice models will be examined, and well look to nations like
Norway for examples of ways to improve criminal justice.
The UU-UNO considers issues of climate change and peace through the lens of
human rights, asserting that all human beings have the right to peace,
breathable air, potable water and food, and to live on land that is free from
pollution.
We recently conducted a series of discussions on small island states and the
threat rising sea levels post to their distinctive cultures and peoples, Bruce said.
Bruce Knotts holds the UN Quaker Office in high esteem for its groundbreaking
work to promote world peace. Emulating that model, he is proud of the work the
Unitarian Universalist UN Office
has done to advance human
rights, especially for populations
who are often overlooked
including those in the LGBTI
community and the indigenous
peoples of the world,
particularly indigenous women.
These are the kind of issues
that occupy the days of the
staff, interns and volunteers who carry out the work of the UU-UNO, said Knotts.
Our passion for the mission helps fuel our energies, and our commitment to
human rights helps us rise to meet each new challenge.