Executive Summary:
The Grass-Roots Independence Project (G.R.I.P.), of The Universal Faith Ministries (U.F.M.), is an organized, non-denominational, faith-based, grass-roots Movement for Social Change.
Our Community Action Teams (C.A.T.'s) missions are to seed & develop community advocacy organizations & grass-roots organizing efforts to effectuate long-term resolution of the pervasive social, political, economic, spiritual, and psychological ills which manifest throughout and encapsulate (i.e.: "suffocate") primarily urban (yet, also, rural) American communities... - with a view toward re-creating, maintaining, and proliferating healthy, viable, and sustainable communities through home-based, faith-based, and independent income opportunities.
In this arena, U.F.M. / G.R.I.P. embodies the Vanguard of said Movement.
Our Real Estate Investment (REI) entity is entitled: UJAMAA ("Cooperative Economics"), which seeks to establish itself as this hemisphere's most complete real estate investment entity - by acquiring, rehabilitating, and reselling pre-foreclosure, foreclosure, real estate-owned (REO) / bank-owned, probate, abandoned, and tax-delinquent...residential, commercial, and luxury properties, within North/Central/South America, and, the Caribbean (then, worldwide).
GOALS: To transform poor urban (and, rural) neighborhoods into working communities: - by establishing safe, healthy, and effective neighborhoods; - by increasing both the amount & the quality of employment therein; - by improving the quality of all urban (and, rural & suburban) schools & school-systems; and, - by revitalizing poor neighborhoods through mixed-income community development.
ROOT CAUSES: - the steady & continuing decline of wages, benefits, and mobility for those with "high-school or LESS" education; - the abject fact that low-income & national racial 'minority' children are forced to attend 'inferior' schools, which possess 'inadequate' resources which would ensure 'equal' educational opportunity; and, also, - public policies & private practices prevent low-income & national racial 'minority' households from having REAL access to housing in mixed-income communities which provide REAL opportunities to build assets.
AREAS of WORK: - improving wages & benefits at the 'low-end' of the labor market; - focusing training & job-placement programs on 'growth' industries, which produce 'higher-wage' jobs, with REAL opportunities for mobility; - 'unbiased' research & advocacy which sincerely address the need for 'adequate' financing for TRUE educational 'equity'; and, also, - REAL support for institutions & policies which TRULY promote 'affordable' housing for mixed-income communities.
Bishop GEOFFREY KAMAU OLUFEMI, D.D., Ph.D.
Founder, Presiding Bishop, Senior Pastor, and Executive Director
