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 during a nuclear freeze campaign by a visionary director of the United Campus Ministry at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Since then, the organization has grown from a volunteer organization serving five counties to employing one staff person and serving 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. 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, remains 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.