Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice

Mission: To empower our communities, people of faith and congregations, mutual aid groups, network organizations, and individual volunteers, to make radical systemic change with love within Washtenaw County and across Michigan.

We are an interfaith and intergenerational collaborative network of individuals and organizations who share values of peace and justice. We continually strive to be more multi-racial and intersectional so we can all be our authentic selves. In pursuit of building this space together, we center anti-racism as well as the perspectives of feminism, anti-classism, and spirituality in its multiple forms.

While our network is diverse in our focus areas, lived experiences, and ways of doing the work, we share values that bind us together. We believe our actions show our values so we practice radical love in all we do. We aim to change structural systems by focusing on the interconnected root causes that continue the status quo. This means recognizing the self-determination of all peoples and the interdependence of all species. This means working to eradicate inequity in the large and small ways while being mindful of our collective and individual impact.

We will listen more, advocate for human rights, empower people to create their own change, proactively share our resources, and act with intention and humility. As we dismantle white supremacy and other oppressive power systems, we will show care for one another. As we reform the whole justice system, we will respect and value others. As we oppose military repression, occupation, and exploitation, we will respect our ecosystem.

ICPJ is dedicated to building more loving, peaceful, and just communities. One critical path to achieve this is through supporting BIPOC communities, those living in poverty, and all marginalized communities in efforts to build community power toward self-determination. Supporting white and privileged communities to understand, untangle, and dismantle systems of oppression is another path. Our programming is built out of community relationships and conversations and an understanding of what role ICPJ can play within larger social justice movements.

In all of our efforts toward racial, economic, social, and environmental justice we intentionally curate space where we can collectively grow into liberated relationships, nurture our community of belonging, and build empathy & understanding across differences.

We further our mission by building capacity to:

• center racial, economic, and environmental justice;
• create spaces for co-learning, healing, conflict resolution, connecting with others, and collaboration; and
• move between work to educate, mobilize, and organize with a focus on coordinated systems-level change.