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

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  • Brokering peace on the South Side

    Outreach workers with CRED (Create Real Economic Destiny) in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood are paid under a city grant to de-escalate and mediate disputes among the same gangs that some of the workers once belonged to. Able to win the trust of people who distrust the police, CRED's violence prevention workers also provide therapy to trauma victims and job development help, in order to address the underlying causes of violence in a neighborhood where a lack of hope can breed a lack of respect for others' lives. Fatal shootings in Roseland are down by one-third while up elsewhere in Chicago.

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  • Health on Wheels: Tricked-Out RVs Deliver Addiction Treatment to Rural Communities

    Because access to addiction treatment is difficult in rural communities, a state program in Colorado has allowed for RV's to be turned into mobile clinics, which has proved especially useful during the coronavirus pandemic. Not only do the mobile clinics offer services such as testing, but they also provide internet access for patients who need to connect with a doctor.

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  • Why Detroit Might Be the True Test of Whether More Cameras Make Cities Safer

    In Detroit, Project Greenlight uses video surveillance technology to try to solve and deter street crime. Instead of the police requesting private security video after a crime occurs, businesses pay to install the Greenlight system, which then streams video live to police analysts. The police claim it has lowered crime, but researches have found no evidence that it affects violent crime rates. Critics see the system as a pay-to-play system in which businesses buy better police protection. And they say that the cameras, and the use of facial recognition software, bias enforcement against people of color.

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  • Kenyan engineers recycling plastics for bricks

    Gjenge Makers Ltd is an alternative building product manufacturing company that creates products – such as pavers and blocks – out of recycled plastics. Founded by four Kenyan engineers, the team began by studying the manufacturing process and researching what products would do well on the market. They then built all of the machinery themselves, which break down the plastics, and then mix them with other building material products to ultimately create customizable plastic bricks that can withstand larger weight and are less expensive than concrete. They are popular in rural and lower-income areas.

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  • Helping Students With Remote Learning — By Also Aiding Their Parents With Wraparound Services: How One Texas Community Center Is Helping Families Facing Impossible Choices

    In San Antonio, the Guadalupe Community Center is providing a free “day school” for children of working-class families in the city’s poorest zip code. The center serves around 30 K-12 students where they can safely attend virtual classes. The center also provides families with “clothing, food, counseling, and help with utilities.” The center runs 40 other similar programs throughout the city.

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  • Taiwan's Crowdsourced Democracy Shows Us How to Fix Social Media

    vTaiwan is a mixed-reality, scaled listening exercise used by the government as a new way to make decisions. The platform provides an online space for citizens to debate and for politicians to listen to. The government lays out political questions, such as regulating Uber or changing time zones, and people can share their feelings, agree and disagree, but divisive statements and trolling are not posted. After debating for a period of time it became apparent that people converged around points of consensus. The government has implemented about a dozen laws and regulations based on the discussions.

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  • Une anti-mafia sociale et solidaire: l'ambitieux modèle calabrais

    En Italie, la loi permet de confisquer des biens et terres accaparés par la mafia et impose qu'une partie soit affecté à un usage social. En 25 ans, 100 000 biens ont été saisis, dont 12 000 ont été mis à la disposition des institutions publiques et des collectivités territoriales, et plus d’un millier affectés à l’économie sociale et solidaire. En Calabre, au pays de la mafia ’Ndrangheta, ce dispositif a permis de transformer les pratiques agricoles.

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  • For One Community, a Simple Hearse Has Profound Effect

    A public hearse, donated by a National Assembly member, helps around three families a day carry their deceased relatives to burial grounds. The minivan, with no seats and a siren on top, has had a profound effect in the area, which is often dealing with disease and occasional armed conflict. Previously, families carried bodies on foot or strapped to a motorcycle, and often had to pay someone to do it. The public service is overseen by a hearse management committee and the city’s 90,000 residents are charged a mandatory fee of about $1.28 per household to cover repairs, gas, and payments to the driver.

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  • State of Texas: Lawmakers weigh ‘solutions' proposed for education equity during pandemic

    In Texas, 2 million households in the state don’t have high speed internet, affecting students of color at a greater rate. Some districts have also had problems with chronic absenteeism. This segment explores creative solutions enacted by different schools in Texas. In Lockhart ISD the district built seven cell phone towers to provide high speed internet to rural students who lived in dead zones. In Leander ISD, a librarian and a parent when door knocking to reconnect with absent bilingual students. In Manor ISD, a digital tracking system helped boost the rate of contactable students from 91 percent, to 99.

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  • Harvard medical student knocks down a big barrier to COVID-19 info

    A volunteer organization is helping to address a language barrier as it pertains to COVID-19 by translating and distributing public health information in the native languages of tribes. Although this is not as simple as translating word-for-word since some of the words do not exist in the local dialects and because some of the guidelines are not practical for the communities, the organization has translated the health sheets into 45 different languages and has worked with "schoolchildren in the tribe to act as conduits for the information."

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