Learning – Faith in Action International

With your support across the world, people who face injustice and oppression in their daily lives are negotiating a better future for their children.

—Rev. Alvin Herring, Executive Director, Faith in Action

Haiti

Investing in local farmers: Grassroots leaders from 22 communities in Northeast Haiti launched an anti-hunger campaign – Plant now so we can feed ourselves tomorrow! – to push aid agencies to help farmers with seeds and tools to plant this fall season and agronomists, irrigation and credit to adapt their farming to droughts and climate change.

Growth: At the invitation of Cap-Haïtien Archbishop Launay Saturné, Organization of People for the Development of Northeast Haiti (OPODNE) launched a new organizing effort in Haiti’s North Department (population 1.1 million).

Central America

Negotiating land rights in El Salvador: Grassroots leaders from Communities of Faith Organized for Action (COFOA) are negotiating with the Housing Minister on property titles for families in sixty subdivisions, toward securing land rights for 350,000 families.

In May, COFOA asked the Salvador Government to invest in 700 community improvement projects identified by local residents, including water, electricity, health clinics, schools and roads and bridges to bring crops to market.

El Salvador doesn’t have unemployment compensation. COFOA has launched a grassroots organizing campaign to demand a safety net for unemployed workers.

Donations have helped COFOA hire two-dozen residents and young professionals as organizers to work with grassroots teams in 140 communities across El Salvador.

Guatemala: At the invitation of Bishop Domingo Buezo, COFOA returned to Guatemala, hiring an organizer in Solola, and providing training to more than sixty Catholic priests in Faith in Action’s approach to community transformation.

Honduras: At the invitation of Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez, COFOA began grassroots organizing in four parishes in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Africa

Spreading faith-based organizing across Rwanda: Veteran grassroots leaders from Mumeya and Nyarubuye are traveling to nearby villages to teach people organizing tools they can use to build health clinics and schools and transform their communities.

New organizing in Kenya and Tanzania: Father Innocent Rugaragu led training events for 150 village leaders in partnership with the Masai Transformation Project. Rev. John Rutsindintwarane is working with Anglican and Lutheran religious leaders to begin training on grassroots organizing in Tanzania.

Ghana: We’re helping the FAITH in Ghana Alliance reorganize to support grassroot organizing to address youth unemployment, clean water, illegal mining, health care and education. In August, we hosted a three-day training for 97 Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal and Mainline Protestant leaders from eight regions across Ghana.

South Africa and Namibia: Organizers from Rwanda and the U.S. traveled to South Africa and Nambia in spring 2022 to meet with religious and community leaders and support training events with the Beloved Community Coalition, Methodist Church and the Centre for Faith & Community at the University of Pretoria.

Eastern Europe

In Hungary, Faith in Action is working with Lutheran Pastor Marta Bolba to support a new organization of public housing tenants working to improve the conditions of their buildings and neighborhoods.

In Slovakia, we helped the Center for Community Organizing launch a faith platform that is working with the Roma community to press the city of Banská Bystrica to improve services for homeless people, repair public housing, and build affordable apartments.

Learning and Growing Together

Faith in Action International is building a global learning community. For the first time, grassroots leaders, organizers and clergy from the U.S., Africa, Latin America, Haiti and Eastern Europe gathered in El Salvador in May to learn from each other and commit to growing grassroots organizing for lasting change around the world.

Root Causes Initiative: In concert with faith leaders in Central America and Mexico, Faith in Action is pressing the U.S. government support community led efforts to address issues of employment, violence and climate change forcing migration.

A Way Forward in Haiti: Alongside Haitian diaspora leaders and allies, we’re asking the Biden Administration to reset its policies to support a Haitian-led solution to the political crisis and invest in local farmers so Haitians can once again feed themselves.

Our Successes

I have seen PICO work miracles here in our village. It is clear this place has changed. People used to die here because we didn’t have a hospital. But now we have a hospital because of PICO. We didn’t have water. We didn’t have a road. And now we do. We didn’t have electricity, but now we do. It was a miracle.

— Poline, Faith in Action Rwanda Leader

I want to endorse all of the efforts they (Faith in Action International) are doing to promote communities of faith here in Central America. The changes that we need will come from faith. Faith is a light. Faith is a power that will transform the social reality from injustice to one of justice.

— Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez

We are not waiting for others to solve our problems. Too many groups have come and trained people to expect charity. When they leave, there is nothing left. I would not participate in PICO if I didn’t believe that we will be different.

— Florcie Tyrell, OPODNE Executive Director

I would also like to highlight the work done by PICO National Network [Faith in Action] and the organizations promoting this meeting. I learned that PICO stands for ‘People Improving Communities through Organizing.’ What a great synthesis of the mission of popular movements: to work locally, side by side with your neighbors, organizing among yourselves, to make your communities thrive.

—His Holiness Pope Francis on the Occasion of the World Meetings of Popular Movements, Modesto, CA, February 2017