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

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  • Searching with the Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared

    Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte is a group of about 200 members, mostly mothers whose children are among the more than 73,000 people who have disappeared and presumably were murdered in Mexico's long drug war. Las Rastreadoras search the countryside for the unmarked graves of the missing, hoping to find their own children, often finding others'. In six years, they have found 198 bodies, 120 of whom were identified. What began spontaneously as one woman's search, then a group effort, has become a way to heal from the pain of what a psychologist calls "ambiguous loss" as well as an act of political activism.

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  • The growing global movement to end outdoor advertising

    There are 29 Resistance to Advertising Aggression (RAP) groups working in France to ban outdoor advertising such as billboards. The groups worked with the mayor in the city of Grenoble to cancel a contract for 326 outdoor ads. While not all contracts can be changed, RAPs are particularly focused on stopping digital signs because the energy required to run them is harmful to the environment. Groups in the United Kingdom, São Paulo, New Delhi, and Tehran have won campaigns to remove billboards and other outdoor ads, which research shows reinforce sexist and capitalist ideologies.

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  • How Mexico City's poorest neighbourhood is battling climate change

    The people in a neighborhood in Mexico City are coming up with innovative solutions to handle climate-related disasters like flood. They use an early warning system that uses a radio signal and WhatsApp to warn residents of environmental dangers. However, the app does not always work. And a mobile classroom offers simulations about how government decisions are made when deciding danger levels of disasters. While thousands of residents had been trained, the classroom is usually only in the neighborhood for a day. Yet, these solutions based on education and communication could be applied to other communities.

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  • It Takes a Village: How Coalition Work is Transforming Lives in Detroit - NationSwell

    A coalition of organizations in the Detroit region had “a goal of re-engaging the region’s 690,000 adults who had completed some college but hadn’t gotten a degree.” One of the programs they created was the Wayne State Warrior Way Back program, which allows students with school debt to re-enroll and “learn” off their debt at a rate of $500 for each semester completed.”

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  • How the Queensbridge Cure Violence Team Is Changing Community Norms

    In the nation's largest public housing development, 696 Build Queensbridge uses the Cure Violence approach to mediating disputes before they turn violent. In 2017, its first year, there were no shootings in the development where the group does its violence interruption work. In the first 7 months of 2020, there were six shootings, up 2 from the same period in 2019 but far better than the rise in violence seen citywide. "Credible messengers" gain the trust of the community to prevent violence and counsel people to use "tools to communicate with other than violence," and without police involvement.

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  • How Essential Food Workers Are Fighting Back

    Meatpacking workers protested Covid-19 safety concerns and a coalition of advocacy groups filed a civil rights complaint with the government accusing Tyson and JBS USA of racial discrimination during the pandemic because the safety issues disproportionately impact line workers, who are largely people of color. Nevada’s Culinary Union also sued Las Vegas Strip casinos for unsafe working conditions. Two casinos have been dropped from the suit after deciding to negotiate privately with the union and Tyson has since instituted some safety measures, but broader impacts of the complaints remain to be seen.

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  • A.D.A. Now!

    Congress' passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 30 years ago made life-changing advances for millions of people with all manner of disabilities. Beyond removing physical barriers and opening education, employment, and public accommodations, it also opened minds to see people with disabilities as fully human – a barrier that had existed historically. The protests and lobbying to put a civil rights lens on these barriers as discrimination got the law enacted, but social change is still a work in progress.

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  • Virtual LGBT+ support group creates a space for youth

    When in-person meetings became impossible during the pandemic, Epicenter's youth-run, drop-in resource center for youth made its LGBTQ+ support group virtual, and attendance went up. The group, called Our Gente, provides a place for youth to support each other. Those trapped at home with families that are unsupportive can still participate online using text chats, rather than having to speak aloud. Youth at the center create their own programming, but work closely with Epicenter's deputy director, who grew up queer, non-binary in a family that at first did not support them.

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  • As Murders Rise, New York City Turns to a Police Alternative

    In New York City, 14 organizations have more than 200 people performing street outreach to intervene in potentially deadly gun crimes in at least 20 of the city's most violent "hot spots." These "violence interrupters" mediate disputes and offer social services in a process that relies on former gang members and others with street experience rather than police. While studies have shown mixed evidence of success, New York's programs have been credited with significant crime decreases. With violence on the rise after a long decline, the city is upping its budget for these programs to $39 million.

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  • The Defund Movement Aims to Change the Policing and Prosecution of Domestic Violence

    Criminalizing domestic violence was considered a feminist-inspired advance for crime victims, but making arrests and prosecution the main responses to the problem has backfired in many ways. With funding and attention focused on punishment, other services for victims have been neglected. And expecting victims will aid in a prosecution, even jailing them for refusing, can ignore the rational choices many victims make for non-cooperation, based on their desire for safety, financial and housing security, to avoid maltreatment by police, and other reasons that point toward more promising responses.

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