In April 2007, I completed a seven-month program sponsored by the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability called New Hampshire Leadership Series. We learned about the best practices for adults with disabilities in education, employment, housing, and participation as full members of the community. Among much more, information on community organizing was also addressed. When I learned about the United Valley Interfaith Project (UVIP), I was interested because it combines my desire to improve the lives of those who have difficult challenges in their lives as well as doing justice by empowering people to advocate for themselves.

Faithfully, at OSLC, we will begin building community through each of our one-on-one conversations, to surface and prioritize the issues for presentation to the broader UVIP Community. The OSLC Core Team and Listeners will begin the Listening Campaign this January through March. Depending on the issue chosen, UVIP may: be helping persons living with disabilities so they may be included in our communities or persons who are ill and don’t have health insurance or perhaps have lost their job; maybe UVIP will help people in the winter months who can’t afford the higher costs of fuel to heat their homes; or those who need affordable places to live; or those that want to work, but can’t find a job or the transportation to take them to their job; etc. The actual issue UVIP will work on will be decided at the UVIP Issues Assembly which will be held at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Claremont in May.

In a book that the adult book study completed in the fall, Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing, written by Dennis A. Jacobsen (a pastor of Incarnation Lutheran Church in Milwaukee and Director of the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus, as well as a personal friend of Pastor Michael), Pastor Jacobsen writes,

. . . “Congregation-based community organizing, at its best, seeks the true reality in which the light of God shines through the darkness of injustice and human evil. It seeks to bring to light the potential of human beings to live as the children of God in just relationships. It seeks to end the night of human misery. It seeks the light of the kingdom of God. It seeks this light in individuals, in communities, and in society.” . .

I am finding it a wonderful experience to be a part of a group of whom all are committed to working together faithfully for greater justice and an improved quality of life for all in our region. On behalf of OSLC Core Team, we look forward to having a conversation with you in the next few months.

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