Meet our Community Partners:

City Life/ Vida Urbana

Jamaica Plain, MA

City Life Vida Urbana is a grassroots community organization that seeks to build working class power and foster individual empowerment in order to catalyze systemic change. City Life works to build racial, social, and economic justice as well as gender equality. Through the creation of collective power, City Life seeks to prevent the displacement of people.

City Life envisions a society that has peace, respect, and equity and guarantees people the right to essential needs such as food, housing, health care, education, employment, and a life without fear of displacement.

City Life's core values include:

-SOLIDARITY

-HOUSING AS A HUMAN RIGHT

-SELF DETERMINATION & SPEAKING ONE’S TRUTH

-CHALLENGE INTOLERANCE AND OPPRESSION

-SERVE THE PEOPLE

-LINKING ACTION TO REFLECTION

-LONG-TERM COMMITMENT TO HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF WORKING AND POOR PEOPLE

Pioneer Valley Project (PVP)

Springfield, MA

PVP is a coalition of churches, synagogues, labor unions, and other organizations that have a strong interest in community life in the Pioneer Valley. There are currently twenty-six member organizations that form PVP. The member organizations come from all sections of Springfield and the surrounding community. Consequently, its membership is very diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, age, religion, socio-economic status, and just about any other demographic category.

PVP is modeled on a number of other community organizing groups that have effected important social changes in their own communities. The basic goal of PVP is to respond to the concerns that the participants in the member organizations raise as the social problems that are plaguing their communities. To this end, each of the member organizations surveys its congregation or membership each year to determine what particular social issues seem most pressing to its members. PVP then holds an issues assembly at which the entire membership of PVP gives input into what projects and goals the PVP will focus on during the next year.

'Building power for justice and the common good'

Independent Drivers Guild, New York

The Independent Drivers Guild is a Machinists Union affiliate that represents over 65,000 For-Hire Vehicle drivers in New York City. The IDG is the first nonprofit labor organization to negotiate a seat at the table with a ride share company and the first to offer crucial new protections and essential benefits while building worker power.

IDG are drivers in solidarity fighting for a better work environment. Together we are a powerful force to win driver-friendly policies. Together we have contact with hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers daily. Together we are a service that generates millions of dollars. With driver activism and solidarity we will win—and can drive with dignity. We believe that the power of a union is workers banding together. With the Guild, we can band together and win better working conditions and increase working drivers’ earnings now.

Granite State Organizing Project (GSOP)

Manchester, NH

The Manchester Chapter of the Granite State Organizing Project and their youth wing, Young Organizers United have become known as a powerful force in the community,

GSOP has focused their attention on Title Loan Companies and their practice of providing short team loans to people at incredibly high-interest rates – generally as high as 300%! These lenders do not seek necessary information as to the ability of the borrower to pay back the loan. This practice takes unfair advantage of citizens living in poverty. Our members worked to create a Manchester Housing Commission on the issue of absentee land scofflaw landlords. They have successfully testified and presented recommendations to the board of mayor and alderman about holding landlords accountable.

GSOP continues its efforts to invite more people of faith along with their faith communities to work with us in bringing about change in our city as we have many battles to face. We are proud to have facilitated meetings between the Police and youth of color and to have brought the faith community to support a peaceful Black Lives Matter march last summer.

Our YOU group is doing extraordinary things to bring attention to issues that point to inequities for low income students, immigrant students and students of color. Students that have been here longer need to have equal access to AP classes and college opportunities. GSOP is also asking the city Board of School Committee to move forward on the Office of Civil Rights recommendation to actively recruit teachers of color as it reflects our student population.

WE ACT for Environmental Justice

West Harlem, NY

WE ACT expands political participation among communities of color and low income residents in order to impact environmental planning and decision making.

WE ARE:

a pioneering community health watchdog. Our proven results and experienced leadership have extended our sphere of influence beyond our Northern Manhattan roots to state and federal levels.
a well-known organization in the research and academic community. We have working research partnerships with Columbia University in programs that have been funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the Federal EPA.
a driving force of change that improves the well-being of all New Yorkers. Our campaigns have culminated in the creation of the West Harlem Piers Park and the implementation of stringent new bus pollution standards that led New York’s MTA to switch from diesel fuel to hybrid electrics that reduce tailpipe emissions by 95%.
an effective force for environmental policy. We work on the city, state and federal levels to improve policy on environmental health and justice. In 2016, alongside partners we helped to pass the country’s first Safe School Water Act, which mandates testing and remediation for lead in all New York State schools. In 2017, WE ACT was instrumental in passing NYC’s Environmental Justice Study Bill (359) and Environmental Justice Policy Bill (886A), which provides the city and all New Yorkers more information to identify and address environmental injustices.