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Who We Are
The United Valley Interfaith Project is a community organizing group.
Community organizing is a systematic approach to addressing the root
causes of social problems and improving the lives of all in our communities.
The United Valley Interfaith Project emerged from several congregations
seeking to understand the extent of poverty and injustice in our
region, and their frustration in tackling poverty and justice issues
by themselves. From a loosely-knit group of congregations in
2003 to a formal organization in 2008, the United Valley Interfaith
Project has become a powerful force for collective action to enhance
social justice in our region. See our history here.
UVIP is a member of the InterValley Project, a network of seven
community organizing groups in the Northeast. Click
here for a link to the InterValley Project.
What is Community Organizing?
United Valley Interfaith Project is a community
organizing group. Community organizing is a systematic approach to
addressing the root causes of social problems and improving the lives of all in our communities.
Through community organizing, people build relationships
across lines that often separate us, and in doing so build groups
made up of diverse members. This diversity is a key strength of community
organizing. There are thousands of community organizing groups throughout
the United States and around the world, working to make stronger
communities and addressing the issues that impede justice.
Community organizing groups do not provide direct
services. We address the issues by listening to those most affected
by the problem, researching possible solutions, bringing together
various stakeholders to solve the problem, and getting decision makers
to implement the agreed upon solutions. Stakeholders include businesses,
faith groups, social service agencies, advocacy groups, government
officials, schools and other community organizations. By involving
all stakeholders in this process, the solutions arrived at enjoy
wider public support. This allows community organizing groups to
continually develop leaders, deepen the web of relationships within
the community, and strengthen the ability to create change for the
common good.
Faith-based community organizing groups
bring people together primarily through their religious congregations
and faith communities, as well as business associations, labor
unions, residential associations, schools, community groups, and
other member based organizations. While faith is a strong motivating
factor for many members, faith-based community organizing groups
do not advocate any particular religious, doctrinal, or politically
motivated solution to the problems we address. We seek to facilitate
practical and sensible solutions that take into account the interests
of all stakeholders and the common good.
The United Valley Interfaith Project is
one of many community organizing groups worldwide that engage members
in collaborative efforts to improve our communities. Community
organizing groups have become vital institutions, gaining power
and influence in working for justice. To empower communities and
individuals, community organizing groups follow the core principle
of not doing for others what they can do for themselves. We will
continue to grow and be an enduring force in our community beyond
our current issue work as we train new volunteer members to become
leaders and develop new relationships, strengthen existing ones,
and research new issues affecting our communities. Through our
Executive Council, we choose the issues we work on in an open and
democratic way and decisions are made by our local member groups.
Community Organizing in New England
To broaden our power, build relationships,
develop our leadership skills and to better understand the issues
we work on, the United Valley Interfaith Project works with a diverse
array of organizations in Vermont and New Hampshire.
We work with community organizing groups
throughout New England as a member of the InterValley Project,
formed in the early 1980s to address the unique challenges facing
the region and to organize a network of groups facing many of the
same problems in similar communities. From the late eighteenth
century through the middle of the twentieth century, the valleys
of New England were the sites of great industrial development,
new forms of production, pioneering labor organizing efforts, and
waves of immigration. At the height of the industrial age, industries
throughout New England—including here in the central Connecticut
River Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire— provided stable, family
supporting jobs for generations of workers. These jobs provided
the base of a strong and sustainable economy across the various
towns of the region. In a relatively brief period of time, the
region suffered a tremendous loss of these skilled, good paying
jobs. The loss of these jobs resulted in dramatic social and economic
changes marked by increased unemployment, the deterioration of
downtowns, the loss of decent affordable housing, and cutbacks
in public services.
In response to these changes, religious,
labor and community leaders began to organize throughout New England.
In 1983, the Naugatuck Valley Project was organized in Connecticut
to address the problems associated with industrial decline by creating
cooperatively owned housing and companies. This effort was followed
by the organizing of the Merrimack Valley Project and the Pioneer
Valley Project in Massachusetts, the Granite State Organizing Project
in New Hampshire, the Kennebec Valley Organization in Maine, the
Rhode Island Organizing Project and the United Valley Interfaith
Project in Vermont and New Hampshire.
For nearly three decades, the member groups
of the InterValley Project have worked to address the drastic decline
that New England communities continue to suffer. We have much to
draw on for today’s challenges from the organizing that has been
done in communities that have struggled to recover. The current
economic crisis is similar to the crisis of the early 1980s in
which InterValley Project’s first group was organized. In many
ways, it is more devastating to our families, our communities and
the nation because of the lack of decent paying jobs coupled with
the severe cut backs in social services and the decline in institutions.
The InterValley Project continues to address these challenges and
connects the United Valley Interfaith Project to a larger network
and movement to empower communities to organize for justice. More
information on the successes of community organizing groups and
the InterValley Project is available on the internet. All people
are encouraged to learn more and to get involved.
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UVIP's History
Building Relationships: Understanding the Need
for Community
Organizing.
2003 to 2005
In late 2003, various clergy from around
our region began talking with each other about the scope and dynamics
of poverty, and the limited success individual congregations had
in addressing the problems that stemmed from systematic poverty
and injustice.
Throughout 2004 and 2005, clergy and lay
leaders sponsored six forums on the various and complex issues
related to poverty in the region. These forums were well attended
and community members actively engaged in the difficult tasks of
self-reflection and identifying the problems of our communities;
displaying a faithful concern for these problems and a passion
for social and economic justice.
This interest led to a legislative forum
focused on issues of poverty in our region, in which legislators
from both New Hampshire and Vermont and the United States’ Congress
participated. By 2005, various clergy from the area held leadership
trainings for pastors and congregations to learn about faith-based
community organizing.
These forums and trainings planted the seed
for an organization made up of community members committed to building
relationships, developing their leadership skills and organizing
for justice.
Organizing for a United Valley
UVIP Becomes a Community Organization,
2005 to 2007
By late 2005, we began inviting congregations
and denominational organizations to become sponsoring groups that
would become the founding members of UVIP and who would shape the
organization and provide leadership. Over the next few years, clergy
and lay leaders from twelve Sponsoring Committee congregations
led our fledgling organization as we continued to build relationships
and understand the challenges of the region. Through this long
and thoughtful process we developed a sense of purpose, an action
plan, a constitution, and a governing structure. During this time
we gave ourselves a name: the Upper Valley Interfaith Project.
In early 2006, we hired an organizer to
reach out to congregations, build relationships and share with
them the work of the organization and our commitment to social
and economic justice. In the spring of 2007, we held our first
Organizing Assembly, attended by over one-hundred and fifty Leaders
from our member groups who approved and embraced our first Action
Plan. In 2007, we made the important decision that has come to
signify the purpose and on-going challenge of our organization:
we changed our name from the Upper Valley Interfaith Project
to the United Valley Interfaith Project. With this change
we enshrined our purpose of uniting a distinct, diverse, hard to
define area intersected by divisions between north and south, Vermont
and New Hampshire, town by town, newcomer and old timer, class,
status and identity. A United Valley became our name and our goal.
The United Valley Interfaith Project Moves
into Action
2007 to 2010
As we continued to build relationships and
understand the challenges of the region, each member group organized
a Core Team made up of committed volunteers to lead in shaping
UVIP and ensuring their member-group was represented. Core Team
members helped organize our first Listening Campaign, in which
over six-hundred people from all member groups participated. Through
this campaign we shared our stories, our hopes, and our fears with
one another; and we began to shape the issues UVIP would work on.
This culminated in our Issues Assembly in May 2008 where Leaders
discussed, debated and selected Housing and Transportation as our
first two issues to focus on. This was an important step towards
action as we needed to develop consensus on how to address the
vast, complex and overwhelming issues related to poverty and injustice.
We agreed on what we had the capacity to do as a volunteer lead
organization and formed issue teams to identify, research, organize
and act on issues affecting the United Valley and contributing
to poverty and impeding justice. From our Issues Assembly we moved
forward with both issue team work and formalizing our organization.
In November 2008 we held our Founding Assembly. We adopted a constitution,
elected our first slate of officers, and began the process of incorporation
as an official non-profit organization.
In January 2009 our Transportation Issue
Team began planning our first Public Action, focused on the challenges
related to public transportation. After months of research, planning
and organizing, the United Valley Interfaith Project moved into
action. On May 17, 2009 over two-hundred people— UVIP Leaders,
supporters, community stakeholders and decision makers— presented
the need for improving public transportation access to Alice Peck
Day Memorial Hospital to fifteen public officials. This included
the telling of powerful stories of people trying to get to the
hospital without a car, walking under a dangerous underpass, a
spouse staying home from work to make sure his wife made it to
an appointment, and a two-hour trip for an employee to get to work
using the bus. This action resulted in all the public officials
agreeing to work with us to find a solution. Soon after, the local
Regional Planning Commission convened a group of stakeholders and
hired consultants to address these issues. By the summer of 2010
a “flex route” bus service emerged as the preferred transportation
solution, along with various options to solve the underpass problem.
In 2009 our Housing Issue Team identified
and researched the complex issues related to the lack of quality,
affordable housing in the region, the increase in homelessness,
fluctuating home heating costs, and the economic recession. Our
Leaders built relationships with stake holders and service providers
to understand the need for stable funding of low income fuel assistance
and home weatherization programs, especially in New Hampshire.
During this time, the need for a cold weather emergency homeless
shelter in the Claremont area emerged as a more immediate need.
This also provided us with an issue to develop stronger relationships
in the Claremont area and work towards UVIP’s goal of uniting the
valley. In the spring of 2010, we organized a coalition of Claremont
area churches to address the needs of the “invisible homeless”
and to work with city officials and social service providers to
establish an overnight shelter on cold winter nights. By the autumn
of 2010, this coalition committed to opening a shelter, including
providing volunteers, finding a safe location for the shelter,
and developing compassionate, trusting relationships with those
in need.
With both our issues teams, the United Valley
Interfaith Project remains committed to ensuring decision makers,
stakeholders, and community leaders find solutions to both the
causes and symptoms of these problems.
In addition to the issues work, many of
us organized to build deeper relationships within our member groups,
developed our leadership skills and reached out to the larger community.
In 2009 we held a series of “UVIP Connects” sessions in which Leaders
visited other congregations, preached and worshiped together and
shared our stories. In 2010 we deepened this by updating member
groups on our work and sharing with one another how the economic
crisis has affected our communities and families. In 2010 we embarked
on a project to understand our core values and how they shape the
issues we work on. With the Granite State Organizing Project we
explored ways to work together to build power in New Hampshire,
to ensure we have a voice in the halls of power, and that we are
listened to by decision makers who direct policy that impact our communities.
In the summer of 2010 our Leaders came together
to plan and carry out our first fund raising campaign. Christened
the “UVIP Support Book Campaign,” we agreed to use the campaign
as a way to share our stories; learn of the concerns, hopes and
fears of people outside our member groups; and— more than anything—
to build relationships across our United Valley. This book is the
culmination of that effort. We thank all of our supporters and
look forward to a strong and meaningful relationship with all our
supporters and all of you reading these lines. Together we can
work towards justice. Together we unite
our valley.
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