Our Story

The Aramean people are one of the oldest civilizations on earth. For over 3,000 years, they shaped the ancient Middle East — their language, Aramaic, was spoken by Jesus Christ and served as the lingua franca of empires. They were among the first to embrace Christianity, giving rise to the Syriac, Maronite, Melkite, Chaldean, and other ancient church traditions.

But survival came at an unimaginable cost. Centuries of persecution, land confiscation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide scattered the Arameans from their ancestral homeland across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon into a global diaspora. Today, they have no state to protect them. No government, no international institution is actively defending their right to exist as a people.

That is why WCA was founded.

In 1983, a group of determined Arameans came together in New Jersey, USA, with a single conviction: if we do not organize, we will disappear. On 12 July 1984, the organization was officially established in Solbacka, Sweden. What began as a grassroots initiative has grown into the only Aramaic-speaking NGO with Special Consultative Status at the United Nations — a recognition granted in 1999 that remains unique to this day.

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For over 40 years, WCA has been the voice of the Aramean people on the world stage: at the United Nations, the European Union, and in direct dialogue with governments. We fight for international recognition of the Aramean identity, the protection of our endangered language, and the rights of our communities — both in the homeland and across the diaspora.

Our story is the story of a people who survived empires, persecution, and 3,000 years of history. A people who refuse to disappear — and who are building a future worth fighting for.