Mennonite Central Committee

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Office of the Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Pennsylvania

The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) or Mennonite Central Committee is an international aid organization and a globally active NGO peace organization sponsored by 15 supraregional associations of the Mennonites , the Mennonite Brethren , the Amish and the Anabaptist Brethren in Christ in North America. The central offices are in Akron (USA) and Winnipeg (Canada). The MCC representation for Western Europe is based in Strasbourg .

History and field of activity

The Mennonite Central Committee has existed since 1920. In the first few years, mainly the Mennonites ( Russian mennonites ) living in Russia and the Ukraine were supported with food donations and sometimes also with donations in kind. The MCC also helped to settle Mennonites who had fled Eastern Europe in Canada. After the Second World War, the organization also got involved in Germany and other Central European countries by, among other things , initiating development programs for displaced persons and distributing packages with food, clothes and medicines. The MCC packages were recognizable by the inscription In the name of Christ . The organization also supported the interdenominational aid program CARE and later Eirene . Between 1945 and 1950, the MCC had invested about £ 30.5 million in direct aid programs. About 1,000 volunteers took part in the relief efforts.

Today the organization has a wide range of tasks. In addition to concrete development aid , she also initiated actions such as jute instead of plastic , which should come to Bangladesh's aid. In North America, the organization set up, among other things, specialist shops for fair trade ( world shops ) under the name Ten Thousand Villages . In 1976 the MCC published the alternative cookbook More-With-Less for the first time , which a short time later in collaboration with Bread for the World under the name Less is more also appeared in German.

In August 2010, an employee who was involved in a development aid project of the International Assistance Mission was murdered in Afghanistan.

literature

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  1. ↑ Harold S. Bender and Elmer Neufeld: Mennonite Central Committee . In: Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online
  2. ↑ Diether Götz Lichdi: The Mennonites in past and present , page 293 f.
  3. ↑ MCC employees killed in Afghanistan. Mennonews.de, accessed on August 17, 2010 .

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