Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Black Grandmothers Feed their Communities, and Pass on Food Traditions—Online

    A program called Grandma’s Hands has begun hosting virtual dinner parties as a means of connecting and engaging with Black grandmothers during the coronavirus pandemic. Funded by a grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, the program also helps connect participants with fresh produce from Black- and Indigenous-run farms in the Portland area.

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  • Their App Sends Free Mail to Incarcerated People. Now They're Helping Prisoners Register to Vote

    Ameelio is a technology startup launched by Yale students to facilitate free communication between people who are incarcerated and loved ones. In their first six months, the group went from sending 300 to over 4,000 letters a week to facilities in the United States. Their initial goal was to provide a not-for-profit alternative to the oftentimes predatory prison telecommunications industry. Recently they began a voter registration initiative where they send registration instructions, a blank voter registration application, and ballot request form to people who are incarcerated and eligible to vote.

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  • Citizens' Assemblies let everyday people make important city decisions. Let's bring them to Philly.

    Citizens' assemblies, where a randomly selected representative sample of people work together to make decisions and find policy solutions to social issues, is an effective approach to decision-making that bridges polarization. It also minimizes the influence of special interests in decision making. America In One Room gathered 500 people in Texas to address topics such as immigration and healthcare, among others, and it showed that people tend to find common ground after deliberative discussions. Citizens’ assemblies have successfully informed policy decisions in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.

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  • Firefighters work through PTSD with peer support, counseling

    A counseling program introduced at Glendale Fire Department has now spread to a handful of other departments across the state after reporting that a significant percentage of firefighters were using the counseling services and had used fewer sick hours. The program offers individual counseling, group support, and training on peer counseling.

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  • Virtual rush, no parties: University of Minnesota fraternities and sororities navigate pandemic life

    Students in fraternities and sororities at the University of Minnesota have moved many of their social activities to a virtual space and are taking precautions for those living in Greek housing to protect members and their community from contracting COVID-19. So far, efforts have largely proven successful in mitigating cases with only two students testing positive who were both able to immediately self-quarantine in private rooms.

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  • In San Diego, Black Muslims are working to expand voting access in jails

    Pillars of the Community hires people incarcerated in local California jails to register new incarcerated voters and conduct civic engagement education behind bars. Pillars, a faith-based criminal justice advocacy group led by Black Muslims, registers hundreds every year, many of whom did not know they were eligible to vote and did not know how to register on their own. Those voting in 2020 will be able to vote on state referenda concerning expanding voting rights for people with felony convictions and on ending cash bail.

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  • 'I feel human again' — At three hotels, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers get the support they need Audio icon

    When jails and prisons released people early as a pandemic precaution, New York City responded to the threat of increased homelessness by temporarily housing more than 400 people in hotels while providing them with re-entry services aimed at preventing new crimes. Exodus Transitional Community, the city's contractor, provided a combination of emergency shelter and counseling that would be unavailable in standard homeless shelters. No COVID-19 cases have been reported in the hotels, while residents praise the service for giving them the stability and safety they need to restart their lives.

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  • How a #Litterati army on Instagram sparked a global fight against litter

    What started as a small group of people taking pictures of waste in their communities and tagging it on Instagram with the hashtag #Litterati, turned into a global effort, and even an app, to map and dispose of trash. Users can upload to the app an image of trash and machine-learning algorithm can tag it location, material, and company who made it. The city of San Francisco asked the makers of the app for help documenting cigarette butts and tobacco products on its streets and ended up winning a legal victory over the tobacco industry to increase the taxes on their products.

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  • A Special Court Keeping Native Americans Out of Jail

    The Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness Court is a drug court, diverting people charged with drug offenses from possible fines and jail into therapy. But it has an added cultural element, providing traditional healing approaches alongside mainstream behavioral therapy. The cultural piece recognizes that Native Americans' historical trauma and disconnect from their culture can contribute to the problems that lead to addiction. The court is far less expensive than jail or prison, and its participants have not been jailed for failing treatment in more than two years.

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  • Despite An Outbreak, Colleges Stay Course

    The Univeristy of New Haven's contact tracing program successfully helped identify an outbreak of the COVID-19, which in turn allowed the school to quarantine those impacted and continue classes for the rest of the students without interruption. Between contact tracing and other protocols such as mandatory social distancing and intermittent testing, UNH "does not foresee moving to a more virtual format or limiting on-campus life further."

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