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

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  • The world has shown it's possible to avert Covid-caused election meltdowns. But the U.S. is unique.

    Several countries successfully held elections during the Covid-19 pandemic and can offer insights for how the U.S. can hold a safe presidential election. These include providing more funding for additional polling places and poll workers, expanding ways for people to vote so that it is easier, requiring protective equipment and social distancing at the polls, allowing officials to process mail-in ballots before election day, and informing the public about any changes to contradict misinformation campaigns. It could be harder in the U.S. due to its size and the complexity of electoral laws across the states.

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  • The old-school organizers who got it done on Zoom

    The Industrial Areas Foundation, the country’s oldest community organizing group, adapted to coronavirus restrictions by using technology to win relief for immigrants without legal documentation in California. Organizing a diverse coalition over zoom had many challenges, but they successfully won the expansion of the California Earned Income Tax Credit to include people who file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, rather than a Social Security number. This applies to about one-tenth of California’s workforce who mainly work in hard-hit service and agriculture industries.

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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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  • Beirut explosion: Lebanese open their homes to strangers displaced by blast

    Within hours of a massive explosion that left 300,000 people homeless, residents in and around Beirut opened their doors to house those impacted by the destruction. Thawramap, which normally identifies locations of peaceful protests, posted a map online showing where housing was available in private homes, hotels, and shelters. Six hours after the explosion 42 locations were available on the map to accommodate thousands, with more offers on social media using the hashtag #ourhomesareopen. Despite intense political polarization that often divides people in Lebanon, residents are displaying great solidarity.

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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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  • The Coronavirus Is Blowing Up Our Best Response to the Opioid Crisis

    The coronavirus pandemic has correlated with an increase in overdose deaths in the United States, likely due to people going against one of the "central tenets of safety when using drugs: Never use alone" as well as governments' longstanding stigma against allowing supervised consumption sites. To overcome this, a harm reduction service in Midland, Michigan is connecting volunteer operators with "people who have no choice but to use alone" via telephone as a means to offer help if something goes wrong.

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  • Will Community Gardens Survive Pandemic Budget Cuts?

    The ability of community gardens to supply healthy food to those who might not have their basic needs met has grown in importance as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States. For example, the New Roots community gardening initiative in Salt Lake City helps nearly 150 refugee families raise food on plots, and about 86 percent of the gardeners report saving an average of $30 a week by growing their own food. However, the future of this program, and others around the country in New York City, Seattle, and Minneapolis, are uncertain as they face budget cuts from cities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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  • How A Healer, An Artist And A Chef Are Fighting For Black Food Sovereignty In South LA

    To ensure that Black communities have access to healthy food, three people in Los Angeles are taking different approaches to promote food security and food sovereignty. As part of Feed Black Futures, Ali Anderson packs nearly 100 boxes a week of fruits and vegetables to deliver to Black women and caregivers who have been impacted by incarceration. Artist Lauren Halsey and her Summaeverythang Community Center deliver up to 1,000 boxes a week of free organic produce. Chef Kat Williams is also making sure Black people of the LGBT community have access to healthy meals.

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  • Waiting for water: On the Navajo Nation, long lines, scarce resources, a cry for solutions

    As the coronavirus spreads throughout the Navajo Nation, many people don’t have access to water to even wash their hands. For generations, the Navajo people have suffered with this lack of water infrastructure, but some solutions have been implemented. For example, the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health has built about 100 hand-washing stations and delivered them to homes in need. Many people are hopeful they will receive more funding to build a more robust water system, but the scale of the problem and the cost of building it are big challenges to overcome.

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  • Amid biting drought, sisters in Zambia fend off hunger with organic farming

    In Zambia, where severe drought due to climate change has negatively affected agriculture, the Daughters of the Redeemer are practicing organic farming to feed hundreds of children and families whose basic needs are not being met. This group of religious sisters do not rely on rainfall to farm; they installed a drip irrigation system that has allowed them to grow crops like cabbage, maize, tomatoes, and beans. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the sisters provided training to local villages about organic farming, and this has allowed families to support themselves during the crisis.

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