Today we celebrate the 76th Human Rights Day — marking the anniversary of the United Nations adopting its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. With serious threats to global human rights funding on the immediate horizon, the Declaration is more relevant than ever.

In its time, the Universal Declaration was groundbreaking, proclaiming that basic human rights belong to every person on earth, no matter their race, religion, nationality or gender. The United States was an early champion of these values — a leader among nations, deploying its resources to communities around the world facing poverty and persecution. While we hope the U.S. continues along that path, we vow to you: AJWS will not stop fighting for all people to live with dignity and human rights, no matter what lies ahead.

As we close 2024, this edition of Stories of Hope looks back on some of the year’s most powerful and inspirational expressions of these values from our global, grassroots partners. Thank you for supporting AJWS. By standing with us, you’re making your own declaration of human rights.

Let’s start in Sri Lanka, where our partners’ disaster relief campaign reached across lines of a longstanding ethnic conflict to become “a true symbol of reconciliation.”

More Stories of Hope

• Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage this year. Read our powerful conversation with two LGBTQI+ activists who helped achieve this incredible victory.
• In India, the fight against child marriage is won family by family, village by village. This is the story of one mother’s relentless drive to give her daughters a better future.
• More than 1.5 million refugees live in Uganda, many of whom fled persecution from nearby South Sudan. Read the story of one AJWS grantee compassionately helping people rebuild their lives after unimaginable violence.
• “When we use healthy, natural products to grow our crops, everything benefits. Our health, our environment, our food, our communities.” Meet the activists growing a nation of organic farmers in El Salvador.
• Creating self-worth and self-love within persecuted communities is an invaluable piece of many of our partners’ work. Learn how hand-stitched dolls are changing the lives of Black women in the Dominican Republic.

While 2024 was filled with immense challenges and heartbreak, it also brought life-affirming wins for global human rights. Here’s to many, many more in 2025!

Thank you for being such a devoted member of our global movement for change.

In solidarity,
Your friends at AJWS