Community Organizing for Climate Justice as Love in Action

Empower Your Community,

Transform Our Climate Future.

Join our 2025 faith-based leadership program for climate justice. 

APPLY NOW FOR 2025

Applications Due December 18, 2024

Course runs January 22-May 14, 2025 and is fully online

Description

Transform your community through faith-based climate action. Our program equips leaders with the tools, knowledge, and networks to implement impactful climate resiliency projects. 

Full Description

The Community Organizing for Climate Justice Program seeks to equip leaders with a climate justice framework and practical tools to implement team-based climate resiliency projects in their communities. A three-day online training followed by 12 weeks of weekly coaching and leadership development, will allow program participants to understand themselves as leaders, expand their capacity to enroll others in collective action, and understand the roles of teams in creating change. 

What you’ll gain

  • Climate justice framework
  • Practical community organizing skills
  • Leadership development
  • Networking opportunities
  • Mentorship from experienced organizers

Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of projects work well for this class?
We will work with individuals throughout the course to further develop their projects but generally speaking projects should have a climate justice focus, be able to be lead and implemented by a team of people, and work to impact system change.
What is the time commitment?

The skills training sessions total 20 hours, the small group/peer coaching-mentors sessions total 14 hours. Participants spend 2-4 hours a week outside of the scheduled sessions to develop and implement their climate justice or climate resiliency project.

Who Should Apply?
  • People of faith interested in climate justice who are interested in putting their values into action 
  • Professionals currently working in the field of climate justice who would like to expand their tools and skillset via a praxis project 
  • Early career organizers who would benefit from structured coaching or exposure to theological underpinnings for climate justice work
How much does the program cost?

$300 covers training sessions and coaching sessions.

Is financial aid available?

Tuition assistance available for eligible participants.

How do coaching sessions work?

o At the start of the program, each participant provides a set of available days/times for their small group coaching/mentoring sessions. This provides the information necessary to form the small group cohorts.
o There are typically 3-7 people in a small group cohort.
o The coaching sessions focus on developing each person’s climate justice/climate resilience project.
o The 12 coaching sessions are guided by an organizer-mentor.
o The group works collaboratively. Members provide each other with support and feedback as they plan and implement their climate projects.

Instructors

Community Organizing for Climate Justice as Love in Action is taught be Via Consulting Cooperative. Via Consulting Cooperative is a collective of evaluators, faith leaders,  and community organizers with over 50 years combined experience in community organizing and both qualitative and quantitative participatory program evaluation in community development, education, and faith-based contexts.

As long time leaders in communities affected by racialized capitalism, members of our collective have done the work of local level response and disaster preparedness and have led both climate justice campaigns  – connecting stormwater management to green jobs, green new deal for housing and climate action in community – CR boxes, measuring air quality. 

Maureen Okasinski, University of Michigan School of Social Work

 

Maureen's Bio

Maureen integrates academic rigor with practical, community-led practices in her work.  She has 20 years experience in leadership, program development, research, design and evaluation, grant writing and management, budget management, and direct practice. This includes nine years of social work teaching, fourteen years of social work practice and six years in consulting. She currently teaches at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MSW

Meghan Sobocienski, Grace in Action Collectives in Detroit, MI

 

Meghan's Bio

Meghan is a Co-Founder and  Director of Grace in Action Collectives in Southwest Detroit. Meghan spent five years as a Community Organizer with the PICO (Faith in Action Network), and five years working as a Co-Organizer for the Organizing for Mission Cohort (Network) through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Through this work Meghan guided congregational leaders to utilize their land, financial, and community resources to create social justice projects in their communities. Meghan has an MDiv. from PLTS (CLU), an MSW from Eastern Michigan University, and is an ordained Deacon in the ELCA.

Bianca Vazquez, Beloved Community Incubator in Washington, DC

Bianca's Bio

Bianca is the Program Director at Beloved Community Incubator in Washington, DC. Neighborhood listening sessions led to her engagement with small micro-business projects with local residents, which led to the founding of BCI. Bianca is trained in community organizing by the Industrial Areas Foundation, Faith in Action Network, and Gamaliel Network. She works in Washington, DC, where she has shaped the creation of mutual aid disaster response networks and led worker campaigns for almost a decade.

Questions?

For more information please contact:

Via Collaborative

Coordinators of Community Organizing for Climate Justice as Love in Action

Success Stories

Community Gardens Counteract Heat Island Effect. Nashua, NH

Shutting Down Red Hill Fossil Fuel Storage Facility. Oahu, HI 

Community Organizing for Climate Justice 2025 timeline<br />
Applications open Oct 15 - Dec 15<br />
Acceptance letters sent

Course Objectives

Download Course Objectives