Background

The Appalachian Peace and Justice Network (APJN), established in 1984, is a non-profit organization that empowers and challenges groups and individuals to work for peace and social justice. Twenty-one years ago, a visionary director of the United Campus Ministries at Ohio University, Athens, 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.

 

Past Programs

 

Sexual Assault Prevention Program

A program of the Appalachian Peace and Justice Network