Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) (then the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children) is founded by Liv Ullmann, Catherine O’Neill, Susan Stark Alberti, and Susan Forbes Martin, with Mary Anne Schwalbe as the founding director.

The Afghan Women’s Social Service Center, offering training and literacy programs to refugees in Pakistan, is founded following WRC’s first delegation to Pakistan, when Afghan women expressed a desperate need for such services.