New Bedford Journal

25 October 2009

 

Putting Faith Into Action

 

 

United Interfaith Action (UIA) is a local faith-based community improvement organization that has 15 member congregations in New Bedford and Fall River.  It seeks to make a spiritual connection between historic democratic values and the values of different religious traditions, with the goal of promoting justice and improving quality of life in Southeastern Massachusetts.  The UIA maintains affiliation with the Massachusetts Community Action Network, a federation of six community improvement organizations in Massachusetts, and with the PICO National Network, based in Oakland CA, that includes over 50 faith-based community improvement organizations in over 150 cities in 17 states (PICO originally stood for the Pacific Institute for Community Organizations, changed in 2004 to People Improving Communities through Organizing, to indicate its broader networking function).

 

What has the UIA done for New Bedford?  One important area has been at-risk youth.  UIA got Mayor Scott Lang to more than double the number of summer jobs for at-risk teenagers, and it continues to work with Street Outreach Workers from member congregations to identify at-risk teenagers.  Last year, the New Bedford School Committee, Superintendent Bonner, and Mayor Lang signed the UIA’s Community Education Compact that focuses on the issue of high school dropouts.  Along with the Inter-Church Council, and the Mass Community Action Network, the UIA worked to fund violence prevention – securing the Charles Shannon Community Safety Initiative, a grant of $11 million for cities across Massachusetts to address teenage crime.  The UIA has also worked on programs to provide more protections for homeowners facing foreclosures and to expand children’s health care.

 

Of particular relevance to New Bedford’s diverse population, the UIA was among the first to respond to the raid on undocumented immigrant workers by coordinating social services and legal aid for families.

 

How might this involve members of First Unitarian?  I have been meeting with David Lesser, the local UIA community organizer, to find out more about their approach to community outreach.  Their general community organizing model is one with which I am in agreement.  It is a version of the old Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) approach, originally created by Saul Alinsky in Chicago in 1940.  As I discuss in my book, Walking to New Orleans, the IAF model addresses conditions of blight and economic depression in urban environments by beginning with an understanding of the actual needs the community itself, letting the voices of citizens and their neighborhood organizations define those needs in such a way that planning for urban renewal is grounded in the very people whose lives will be changed by them.  IAF teams then work to facilitate a transfer of power – from existing sources of authority and economic means to the least advantaged, who can then be in a position to build their own network to address community improvement goals.  This direct involvement by neighborhoods in shaping one’s own living environment is key to my concept of participatory design.  The contemporary IAF operates as a grassroots, faith-based, community-organizing group that typically works cooperatively with local interfaith organizations.  

 

So, United Interfaith Action works with local congregations to develop leadership and build power at the neighborhood level.  Based on shared values and concerns for neighborhood issues, it researches problems, and works through local leaders and public officials to effect change through public action.

 

Here is an opportunity for members of First Unitarian to get directly involved in local neighborhood improvement efforts – and to do it in a way consistent with Unitarian Universalist principles.  This opportunity stands right at the conjunction of UU Principles that stand for the inherent worth and dignity of every person, for justice and equity in human relations, and for the use of democratic process in society. 

 

If you are interested in this kind of hands-on involvement in making New Bedford a better place to live and raise your children, let me know.  The first step in the process would be for you to meet one-on-one with David Lesser so that a picture can be developed of how individuals or groups within First Unitarian might get involved.

 

Here is an opportunity for lived faith – for faith in action.

 

This is my New Bedford Journal for October 25th, 2009.