|
Background
The Appalachian Peace and Justice Network (APJN) is a non-profit
organization that empowers and challenges groups and individuals to work
for peace and social justice. APJN was established in 1984 by a visionary
director of the United Campus Ministries at Ohio University,
Athens, who
initiated APJN during a nuclear freeze campaign. Since then, the
organization has grown from a volunteer organization serving five counties
to currently fourteen counties of Appalachian Ohio and West Virginia.
APJN educates, trains, and builds coalitions among local and regional
groups and institutions. Although APJN began as a peace and justice
networking organization, over the years, it has tried to address the root
causes of violence and militarism in the society. APJN’s work for
peace thus begins with providing education to respect diversity, increasing
people’s information-base and skills to solve problems, and fostering
an independent, creative and critical thinking environment. The central
ethos, however, remained the same, securing peace and social justice.
Some of the issues confronting the Appalachian region are: absentee
ownership of land; an economy based on extraction of resources such as coal
and timber, often with environmental consequences; poverty; hunger and
homelessness. Other issues are more subtle: a large military budget
resulting in cutbacks in social services; Appalachian youth joining the
military because few other jobs are available; U.S. domestic policies that
affect the local economy; racism, sexism, and other divisions and
conflicts. APJN’s effort is to empower people to identify and analyze
these problems, develop possible solutions, and work for necessary
institutional changes.
Members of APJN come to work out of deeply held ethical, moral or
religious beliefs. They also believe that change will happen only when each
individual in the society believes that his or her experience and opinions
matter and feels empowered to act.
|
