A Center for Social Change & Sustainable Living
The Voluntown Peace Trust is a nonprofit education center dedicated to social change and sustainable living. We offer programs, workshops, and retreats, as well as hospitality and resources, to people constructing alternatives to the violence of our age.
COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE
Fresh veggies are now available on Saturdays at our farm stand!
2009 FARM STAND HOURS
Staffed Saturdays from 9 am - 12 pm, then self-serve through the afternoon
Please take time to find out more about the VPT Garden Program!
THE CO-OPERATIVE FOR NONVIOLENT ACTION
A New Program of the Voluntown Peace Trust
The Voluntown Peace Trust, in Voluntown, Connecticut has recently decided to create a Co-operative for Nonviolent Action to provide an opportunity for groups to work cooperatively to offer workshops, trainings, retreats and gatherings for their own groups, for co-op groups and for other interested people.
The Co-operative for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) will be made up of organizations who do a variety of social change work. Groups can work together to offer workshops and trainings. By working cooperatively we can share ideas, skills, and resources. CNVA can be a place of problem-solving and creating together, of connecting issues and shared retreats. This will increase our organizational capacity while stretching our funding as we provide popular education that leads to action for a better world.
Located on 57 acres in Southeastern Connecticut, the Voluntown Peace Trust is centrally located between
Boston, New Haven, Hartford, Worcester and Providence. It became the home of the Community for
Nonviolent Action (CNVA) in 1962. Since then it has been a center for work based in nonviolence, social
and economic justice. With this history, retreat and conference facilities, wooded trails, streams and an
organic garden, it is an important resource for groups working for social change.
What do we mean by “co-operative”?
A cooperative is a democratic structure based on values such as equality, honesty and social responsibility. As co-op members, we will work together to do things we can't do on our own. We are not simply a group of folks renting the facilities, but member groups developing programs that will be better done with other groups. We will meet to share our ideas and concerns, our skills and experiences, to develop ways to bring our issues together and promote cooperatively run events. Each group in the coop will be stronger when we pool our resources, especially important in these tight economic times. Individually, groups will benefit from the use of the facilities at an affordable rate, among other things.
What do we mean by “nonviolent action”?
Nonviolent action is based on Gandhi's three elements of social change:
1) personal change to find better ways of being and relating;
2) political action to challenge violent and oppressive structures; and
3) constructive programs to develop alternatives to those structures.
Many groups work on one of these elements, together we create a more wholistic approach. Education and training programs can help us explore and develop the meaning of these three elements of social change for our society today and lead us to the actions that can make a difference.
We hope that this Cooperative for Nonviolent Action will enable us provide opportunities to work on the vision we share of social, economic and racial justice, peace and nonviolence, and the creation of a sustainable culture for youth and for the planet. We welcome your participation in this process.
Co-op development is in its earliest stages. Folks from at least 3 groups are organizing now to find other interested groups. Initial groups will decide on membership and benefits, and as it grows will elect a co-ordinating committee. The coop also chooses a representative for the Voluntown Peace Trust Board.
If you are part of a group that may be interested in joining or learning more about the Co-operative for Nonviolent Action, please contact us. If you are an individual interested in the work of CNVA and the Voluntown Peace Trust, we can send you information on the other programs and VPT membership.
For more information, contact Joanne Sheehan of the War Resisters League/New England at 860-639-8834 or email joannepsheehan@gmail.com.
If you are considering a charitable donation, we invite you to check our 501(c)(3) non-profit status with GuideStar.
Copyleft by S. Hartford, 2006. Sylvia's S.T.A.R.