Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission, Vision and Values

The Rrenew Mission is to help in the building of a sustainable, healthy and just Appalachia (the town and the region) by providing an affordable living and working space for long term volunteers working with local organizations that share the vision of a sustainable Appalachia.

The Vision of the Collective is to provide a working model of affordable, ecologically responsible living that serves its community and the healthy transformation of the society around it while engaging in the work of organizing with Appalachian coalfield and Southwest Virginia communities to ensure environmental and social justice. We will support and initiate organizations, programs or projects that promote healthy, diverse and just ecologies and communities in Appalachia, the town and the region. Through partnerships with a broad range of organizations, individuals and other efforts, we seek to renew and rebuild a sustainable Appalachia. The collective house/residence will also serve as a space to demonstrate and learn sustainable living practices that can be employed throughout the coal field regions of Appalachia.

Guiding Goals: The RRENEW Collective will work on programs and projects that strive to:

1. Increase and preserve the health of streams and water quality in the Powell and Clinch River Watersheds.
2. Preserve and improve the ecological integrity of the Appalachian bio-region
3. Improve sustainable and responsible economic opportunity in the Powell and Clinch River Watersheds.
4. Promote physical health and health care.
5. Encourage continued and higher education.
6. Ensure social, economic and environmental justice.
7. Increase community political empowerment and local governance.
8. Engage in and promote community service that benefits underprivelaged and disenfranchised members of our community.

Values: In addition to the purposes and goals stated in this document, we affirm and promote the following, based on principles of self-help, self-responsibility, participatory democracy, equality, equity, solidarity, mutual aid and the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility, anti-oppression for collective liberation, environmental justice and ecological sustainability:

1. Belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person regardless of race, class, age, gender, sexual preference, religious belief, physical ability, cultural background, financial resources, property, or income.
2. Respect for the right of all to express or not express their own personal, social, political and religious beliefs about the nature of reality.
3. Concern for each other’s well-being, and the well-being of our neighbors
4. Sharing power and responsibility to shape our community through a consensus decision-making process  characterized by a cooperative search for solutions which fulfill and protect the needs of all concerned.
5. Commitment to resolve conflicts without violence, to take responsibility for our own actions, to communicate directly and honestly, and to be sensitive to the concerns of others.
6. Commitment to the concerns and the unique cultural and material reality of the community we live in and those we interact with.
7. Belief that those living today have a responsibility to preserve and improve our living environment for those born tomorrow.