Atheist Alliance International

The Atheist Alliance International (AAI ) is an alliance of currently 58 autonomous atheist organizations, 46 of them in the United States. It was founded to work together to increase the influence in all countries of the world and to stimulate cooperation for common goals. President is Stuart Bechman.

At first, they focused only on the U.S., but has now expanded their field to the international level. The work of the Alliance began when four atheist groups in 1991 met for the first time in Los Angeles and joined forces. They decided that they wanted to fight the problematic situation of atheists in the USA from the ground up by setting up this association.

By design, the alliance has been designed so that all members have the same impact on objective, program, policy decisions and carry out the work of the coalition. Thus, each group member has one vote, even though the original four are now growing so quickly to almost sixty ( 2009).

It is run by volunteers and supported by them. All members are volunteers.

The AAI has the status as a "special adviser " to the United Nations.

Activities

One of the main objectives of the AAI is to set up other groups and to strengthen existing ones. Parallel to this task they want to promote their understanding of rational thinking. You want to counteract the religious worldviews through education in schools and colleges.

The Alliance handles all these activities with the help of already existing media and means of communication: it leads individuals and groups at its annual conference together, they informed the basis of a quarterly magazine, it provides a web site, and printed annually a directory, the Organizations and Information describes for worldwide contacts and lists. Furthermore, it provides information on organizations that provide help and support in the case of discrimination against atheists and agnostics, and also provides information on the authorities and bodies, where you talk about anti- atheist bigotry and can not find any other assistance.

Indirectly, supports the start-up alliance of like-minded organizations by providing models for group infrastructures available, makes connections to peers and group formations inspires; makes them eg for two national student alliances advertising. They also financially support the growth of the individual member organizations, by doubling their self-acquired donations. They also want the members merge and therefore holds regular meetings.

The AAI annually organizes an annual conference. The first congress took place in 1995 in Los Angeles. In recent years, the meetings were:

Richard Dawkins Award

The AAI awards since 2003, during the conference the Richard Dawkins Award. The award is named after Richard Dawkins, a British zoologist who was called by the magazine Der Spiegel as the most influential biologist of his time. With the Richard Dawkins Award will be honored an outstanding atheist who has done his work during the past year at the most to raise public awareness of atheism.

Previous winners:

Others

From a meeting of the AAI, the term Bright emerged.

International affiliates (selection)

  • Australia: Atheist Foundation Of Australia
  • Denmark: Dansk Ateistisk Selskab
  • Germany: International Federation of non-religious and atheists ( IBKA )
  • Finland: Suomen Ateistiyhdistys
  • Ireland: Atheist Ireland
  • Canada: British Columbia Humanist Association
  • Nigeria: Nigerian Humanist Movement
  • Austria: Free Thinkers Organisation Austria
  • Russia: Society of modern atheism, humanism and religious tolerance ( smah )
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