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  • Kentucky town hires social workers instead of more officers - and the results are surprising

    Alexandria, Kentucky's 17-officer police department avoided the expense of hiring more police officers by adding two social workers to assist police in responding to the types of calls that can often turn into repeat calls to 911. By working with people in domestic disturbances, mental health crises, or with substance abuse issues, the social workers connect families to services immediately, rather than awaiting a referral from the police after the crisis has passed. Repeat calls to 911 are down and the city saves up to $50,000 for each position where a social worker substitutes for a police hire.

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  • College Food Pantries Are Reinventing Ways to Feed Students

    University-based food pantries around the U.S. had to quickly rethink the ways they could continue to provide students with access to food during the pandemic, despite students not having the same campus access as before. Fresno City College in California expanded its hours of operations and widened access to the whole community, instead of students only. Other college food pantries in California started using appointment-based apps for students to make appointments and pick up their food. Philander Smith College in Arkansas offered ready-made food baskets and grocery gift-cards, and emergency cash.

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  • This tech is bringing water to Navajo Nation by pulling it out of the air Audio icon

    Zero Mass Water partnered with the Navajo Nation to bring water into the homes of rural residents who may not have easy access to a water source. Hydropanels that connect to a tap inside the home use sunlight to absorb enough water vapor to make at least 10 liters of water per day. While people at first were skeptical about the idea during a pilot test, the company and Navajo officials are hoping to scale the solution.

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  • The hidden hand that uses money to reform troubled police departments

    Smaller cities that cannot afford costly payouts for civil settlements in police misconduct cases rely on liability insurance, which can act as a regulator when insurers demand reforms up to and including disbanding troubled departments. While police killings have decreased in large cities over the past six years, they have increased in the suburban and rural areas served by the vast majority of police departments. “Loss prevention” measures that require policy and personnel changes have been proven to work, but insurance that fails to police the police can also shield cities from accountability.

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  • In green jobs boost, communities get bigger role running Pakistan's national parks

    Khunjerab is the country’s oldest and largest national park and is a model of successful community-led management and conservation. Eight villages inside the park agreed not to graze livestock in a 12-square-kilometer area in exchange for designated grazing areas that rotate so each can recover after being used. Locals get 80% of the park’s employment opportunities and the local communities receive 75% of the visitor-generated revenue. As a result, Marco Polo sheep and Ibex numbers have grown substantially. A new Protected Areas Initiative has been funded to expand conservation efforts using this model.

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  • South Korea's Key Weapon to Stop the Pandemic? Smartphones

    In South Korea, the government is using smartphone technology, including various independent apps and text messaging, to implement contact tracing. This has enabled the country's economy to avoid a full shutdown. Early results comparing South Korea to other countries shows that this digital strategy is just as successful as implementing complete lockdowns.

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  • Why Rwanda Is Doing Better Than Ohio When It Comes To Controlling COVID-19

    Rwanda, a country with the same population of Ohio, has emerged as an example of how to slow the spread of coronavirus, with only 1,500 cases reported so far. Besides initiating a lockdown, implementing free testing, and recruiting community health care workers, police, and college students to be contact tracers, officials also used "the same structure, same people, same infrastructure and laboratory diagnostics" that had been working to contain the spread of HIV.

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  • Blockchain technology to boost power access in rural areas

    A micro-grid system has been paired with blockchain technology to easily sell and buy affordable and clean energy in rural Kenya. Residents living in the countryside don't generally have access to reliable and affordable electricity but this new technology allows rural Kenyans to install solar panels on their homes and easily sell surplus electricity to neighbors. The pilot program is a result of a collaboration between an NGO and a local tech company.

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  • It's still hard for some to access COVID-19 testing; are pop-up test sites the answer?

    A new initiative in Cleveland, Ohio aims to increase Covid-19 testing access in communities where social determinants of health pose a barrier to accessing testing sites. The initiative, which complements other city-wide efforts to increase testing, is facilitated by a partnership between 17 local churches and the County Board of Health.

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  • Cracking the transportation bottleneck

    In Whitehall, Montana, a senior center and a nonprofit that helps rehabilitate individuals with brain injuries joined together to enhance public transportation services for "multiple constiuencies," including rural, elderly populations and for those who are living with a disability. Although Whitehall Public Transportation was not immediately popular, in 2019, over 27,000 riders utilized this new, free service to run errands, travel to appointments and local events or just to meet other community members.

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