As we seek out new approaches to social change, we've been impressed with the work being done by various organizations working on a local level to effect change from the bottom up. We belief that--in addition to the specific issues they may address in their own communities--each of these models has the potential to be applied to a range of issues from the war and military recruiting to social justice issues such as healthcare, education, and housing. Below are links to some folks who are worth checking out:
People's Organizing Committee (POC) and New Orleans Survivor Council have as their objective to "build and maintain a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure that can help to meet the needs of people most impacted by Katrina and facilitate an organizing process that will demand local, grassroots leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans."
The Rebel Army Party (R.A.P.) of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, "are a group of young people from Perth Amboy dedicated to fusing 'Revolutionary Politics' with 'Hip Hop Activism'" in their "call for community self-determination without the use of violence."
The South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, based in Camden, New Jersey, "provides a way for people living in ...affected communities in South Jersey to organize and take back control of their neighborhoods and communities." They "are united in a progressive vision for society based on social and environmental justice, which is grounded in the deeply held conviction that 'another world is possible.'"
Tent State University is a coalition of groups founded by Rutgers University students opposed to state budget cuts to higher education. Each year, diverse groups, including peace, democracy, social justice, environmental, youth and student organizations, "come together at Tent State to demand to build a democratic community together."
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, has helped more than one hundred communities implement local democracy initiatives aimed at wresting control of our communities back from the corporations that see us as resources to be exploited.
North Plainfield Citizens for Community Rights, a group "intent on empowering free and equal citizens to solve local problems through open public discussion and use of our democratic right to self-governance," brought CELDF's Democracy School to Plainfield, New Jersey, have written an ordinance that denies corporations the rights of "personhood" within their township, and plan to take it all the way to a referendum.