THE BOSTON UJIMA PROJECT is organizing
neighbors, workers, business owners and
investors to create a new community
controlled economy in Greater Boston.
We are challenging poverty and developing
our communities by organizing our savings, businesses and customers to grow local
wealth and meet our own needs.
UJIMA (oo-JEE-mah) is a Swahili word, and the celebrated Kwanzaa principle for “collective work and responsibility”. Ujima inspires us to take responsibility for our communities, to see our neighbor’s problems as our own, and to build collective power to solve them together.
The Ujima Project demonstrates new ways to invest, work, buy, own, and advocate.
Twitter : @UjimaBoston
The Ujima Project was launched in the spring of 2015 after a year-long cross sector study group involving 40+ leaders
invested in Boston’s low income communities of color. Hosted by the Center for Economic Democracy, Boston Impact
Initiative and City Life / Vida Urbana, the group studied strategies for our communities to control capital, grow co-ops
and land trusts, and protect locally owned companies from the “race to the bottom” economy.
The Ujima Organizing Committee was launched in July 2015 to turn our learnings into action and to begin research and
planning for a systemic intervention and a holistic proposal for shifting our economic culture. As we pilot new ways to
invest, work, buy, own, and advocate, we are driven by a belief that another world is needed, possible, and coming into
being today.
As racism, patriarchy and other forms of oppression breed poverty, violence and environmental crisis, Boston’s growing
network of cross sector leaders are driven to create transformative solutions that uplift our communities and model
real alternatives for a new economy
