History
The organization was founded in 1979 as Save the Refugees Fund, a task force organized by Dan O'Neill in response to the plight of Cambodian refugees fleeing the famine, war and genocide of the Killing Fields. By 1982, the organization had expanded its work to other countries, was joined by Ellsworth Culver (Mercy Corps co-founder), and was renamed Mercy Corps International to reflect its broader mission. After a shift from simply providing relief assistance to focusing on long-term solutions to hunger and poverty, Mercy Corps' first development project began in Honduras in 1982.
As of 2009, Mercy Corps' global headquarters are now located in the Old Town neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, at 45 SW Ankeny St. 97204. Opened October 9, 2009, the building houses the agency's headquarters offices, The Mercy Corps Action Center (a companion center to The Action Center to End World Hunger opened, October 2009 in Manhattan), Mercy Corps Northwest and The Lemelson Foundation.
Mercy Corps also has a European Headquarters at 40 Sciennes, Edinburgh, Scotland EH9 1NJ. In 1996 Mercy Corps merged with Scottish European Aid and formed an organisation registered as Mercy Corps Scotland in 2000.
Read more about this topic: Mercy Corps
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)