Atema Eclai

Atema Eclai serves as director of UUSC's Programs, Advocacy, and Action Department. In this capacity, she leads the organization's mission to advance human rights and social justice in the United States and around the world, focusing on defending civil liberties and democratic processes, protecting the human right to water, promoting workers rights and fair wages, and preserving human rights during disasters. She also oversees UUSC's advocacy and mobilization campaigns in support of these major objectives.

Prior to joining UUSC in June 2004, Eclai was one of the chief facilitating team members for Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace, an initiative of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

Eclai has worked with groups in Africa and around the world on issues of conflict resolution, genital mutilation, and quality education for rural development. She has run programs of the United Nations Women's Conferences and has facilitated meetings with the European Union.

"I am only an apprentice in the field of human rights, learning each day to question and challenge unjust power structures," says Eclai. "Human-rights work moves me from a place of easy excuses to a space of seeking real, just solutions. It gives me hope and the courage to believe that the world we live in can change."

Eclai holds a master's degree from the Harvard University Divinity School, and master's and doctoral degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.