New Unity is delighted to welcome a collective to the Newington Green Meeting House for a co-recital of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You’re invited to participate by reading part of the Declaration.

See their message below. You can find out more, and sign up to participate, here. You will also be able to sign up at the Meeting House later in December.

An Act of Memory is inspired by Anniversary – an act of memory by Monica Ross and collaborators.

If you are joining us as a member of the audience simply turn up at New Unity from 3pm. No booking is required and refreshments will be served. If you would like to join Robert as a co-recitor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights then please read on for more information or sign up here.

New Unity is a radically inclusive community dedicated to love and justice. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, whatever you look like, whoever you love, however you identify, and whatever your age – you are welcome.

Whether you are coming as a co-recitor or a witness to the recitation, we look forward to seeing you on 10 January.

With thanks,

The Monica Ross Archive and friends

Here’s why Monica Ross took an interest in the UDHR.

Before reading the Declaration, Monica wondered how anyone could defend their principles against overwhelming opposition, especially from authority. The Declaration clarified this for her: you need an ethical system so ingrained it activates instinctively, and you need to feel part of a wider community that shares your values. Together, she hoped, these give you the courage to stand up for your own and others’ rights. Now the Monica Ross Archive opens this work up for us all take the work forward.

“I went to read the Declaration for the first time, and I got one sentence in and I was so shocked at my own complacency – one, that I had never read it; two, that I assumed that I knew what it said, but I didn’t; and also that I had this very privileged, Western relationship to the document, which was ‘well, we don’t really need it, everything’s fine here’. 

“I decided that I would try and learn it off by heart to see if I could make it part of me and then the second step was to try and recite it publicly, to do a public action where you repeat it as a form of dissemination or reproduction.” - Monica Ross