A Mission of Social Justice
Commitment to social justice is central to Unitarian-Universalism. Seven Principles guide our faith and compel us to act with the belief that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. Denominationally, our justice efforts include education for the congregation or the community, service, advocacy, witnessing, and community organizing.
How We Choose Where to Focus our Attention
In a world filled with injustice—with individuals and groups denied basic human rights and opportunities because of their race, their income status, their gender, their sexual orientation, their age, their religious or political beliefs, where they live, or other factors—how do we choose where to focus our attention and efforts? At UUSF, our choices come about through the interplay of three factors:
- Our ministerial team and lay leadership highlight and promote areas of focus based on what we see in the wider community and world and what we hear from our congregants.
- Congregants, either singly or in a group, adopt an issue that holds personal meaning, begin working on it, and draw the broader congregation in.
- Others in the local community ask for our help.
Major Areas of Focus
What we work on, where we devote our time and resources, shifts over time. Currently, much of our work falls into three buckets, with some overlap among the buckets.
Most of our climate change efforts have been in support of
The Climate Reality Project, and more specifically its
Southcoast chapter, which is led by one of our congregants. We’ve partnered with Climate Reality Southcoast to promote events like
Be the Solution to Pollution beach clean-ups and plastic waste brand audits, and we’ve hosted online and in-person education and action events in collaboration with Climate Reality, Be the Solution,
Break Free from Plastic, and
ClimateXChange through our UUSF South Coast Progressive Voices speaker series.
Affordable housing is a new issue for us at UUSF, and our efforts to date have been modest. Our annual budget supports a Community Help Fund to meet assistance appeals to UUSF from the wider community. Recently, we’ve seen an increase in housing-related requests, and we’ve responded to help. Because of the growing need, we took the uncommon step of dedicating one month’s Share the Plate receipts to the Community Help Fund. We are also looking to involve our congregation in supporting a Fairhaven-specific initiative: the adoption of three new mixed-use zoning overlay districts. The zoning districts, if adopted by Fairhaven Town Meeting, hold promise for increasing the town’s housing, including affordable housing.
Other Social Justice Work at UUSF
Each Sunday, fifty percent of the non-pledge collections at our church are donated to a local, regional or global non-profit organization, selected on a monthly basis, that does work in keeping with our UU
Principles.
Our church welcomes and nurtures the inclusion of all people into the life of the congregation. A Welcoming Congregation Working Group exists within the church to provide special welcome to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals and to create educational forums and other events in support of this objective. Recently, we’ve connected with the
Fairhaven Belonging Committee to explore ways in which we can support each other’s efforts.
SCPV is an occasional speaker series addressing local, regional, and national issues of broad public interest to educate and prompt action. Sessions are either in person or online. SCPV events are always publicized in church communications and on our
UUSF Facebook page.
CEJ, a group comprised of congregants and others, partners with other organizations, like
American Promise, to address a widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” in American society and the role of unfettered big money in American politics.
Twice monthly, UUSF compiles a Justice & Service Newsletter, featuring information on social justice-oriented events and activities within our South Coast orbit.
Contact us to join our J&S Newsletter mailing list.
At Christmastime, the church annually helps one or more needy families, often in conjunction with the New Bedford office of
Child and Family Services, Inc. Congregants purchase gifts for family members from a “wish list” as a way of brightening their holiday season. This is an intergenerational project that involves the children and youth of the church in sorting and wrapping presents.
In 2018, UUSF, in conjunction with other faith groups and community organizations, launched the New Bedford Immigrant Support Network to assist asylum seekers by providing transportation to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appointments at considerable distance from their homes in New Bedford. Although this work ended in spring 2020, we remain committed to working with our immigrant neighbors, especially those who are undocumented or seeking formal asylum.
We have recently committed to sponsoring a local family’s bid to gain CAM parole status. The U.S. CAM refugee and parole program provides certain qualified children who are nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, as well as certain family members of those children, an opportunity to apply for refugee status.
Our Community Partners
As a medium size congregation, we find that our efforts can be most impactful when we work in partnerships with others. The list below captures several of the community partners with whom we’ve worked, or whose messages we’ve amplified, in recent years. Because our work brings us into many local orbits, this list is not intended to be exhaustive.
New Bedford-based
CEDC provides a three-prong “people-centered asset-based” pathway where all those in the immigrant community have access to essential resources and skill-building, connections within the community through collaboration, and work collaboratively towards longer-term community change and resilience.
UU Mass Action‘s mission is to organize and mobilize Unitarian Universalists in Massachusetts to confront oppression. They provide pathways toward justice and identify opportunities in which we can live our shared values.
CSJ has been committed to economic and social justice in Southeastern Massachusetts and beyond since 1994! Visit
CSJ to learn more.
ECM has been a major supporter of UUSF’s justice and service work in recent years. The ECM
Justice Network includes action groups active or forming on Housing, Immigration, Environment, and Decarceration & Police Accountability.
Serving an area that stretches from the Rhode Island state line east to Provincetown, south to the Islands and north to Attleboro, Brockton and Plymouth,
YMCA Southeastern Massachusetts works to bring about the elimination of racism and the empowerment of women.
Help out at area beach clean-ups. Follow Be the Solution to Pollution on
Instagram or
Facebook to learn about upcoming events.
Check out
Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of community organizations, faith-based groups, and labor unions committed to building an economy that invests in families, gives everyone the opportunity to succeed, and creates broadly shared prosperity.
Bristol County for Correctional Justice is calling for reforms to the Bristol County House of Corrections, including replacing “punitive culture” with “trauma-informed” and “evidence-based” rehabilitative programming; adopting a training program for de-escalation; improving food for inmates; ending solitary confinement; ending the use of K9 units; implementing diversity and inclusion in staff training; and adopting the use of body cameras.
Read all about the work of the
South Coast Food Policy Council, an alliance of local organizations working together to improve access to fresh, healthy food for all area residents.
Among its many efforts,
PACE operates a
Food Bank that serves a yearly average of 6,000+ individuals, and has partnered with over 20 other agencies in the fight to end food insecurity and a
Housing Opportunity Center that offers limited rental assistance; mediation when negotiating with a landlord; tenant education workshops; and lists of available rental units.
South Coast LGBTQ+ Network is a great resource to get connected with service and justice in our area. Their goal is to create a community where members can freely, safely, and joyously celebrate their true selves and realize their full potential. The Network sponsors weekly support groups, health and wellness events, and activities for youth and everyone across the LGBTQ+ age spectrum.