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

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  • Indigenous Colombians mount a spiritual defense of the Amazon

    Five different Indigenous groups formed an alliance known as the Union of Traditional Age Medics of the Colombian Amazon to practice spiritual ceremonies and community healing based on the ingestion of a potent hallucinogenic tea known as yagé. These groups are at risk of physical and cultural extermination due to deforestation. By engaging in traditional yagé ceremonies, they use their traditional knowledge and spiritual wisdom to help make decisions and retain their autonomy in the rainforest.

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  • Innovative program helps Lawrence, MA, get off the mat

    A program in Lawrence, MA has helped hundreds of families to enter the paid labor force by connecting with them via their children’s’ schools. Using a $700,000 grant, the program connects with parents when they register a child for school. Schools offer programs through resource centers that help them get the training and connections needed to find a job. Oftentimes the parents also get an actual job referral. A key component of the program is English language training as well as skills courses in healthcare, education, manufacturing, and other fields.

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  • Chennai Ran Out of Water — But That's Only Half the Story

    The city of Chennai in India is engaging in wetlands restoration and stormwater management by using traditional knowledge and community action to reduce flooding and ensure that people have access to drinking water. Through a development program called Water as Leverage, they are implementing “slow water” projects that restore flow paths for water, which could provide greater water resiliency for humans and protect and restore natural ecosystems. While it can be difficult to get government engineers to embrace green solutions, public awareness of the environmental work is helping move the projects forward.

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  • Botswana's Radical Experiment in National Unity

    Botswanans have deprioritized deeply held tribal identities, created a national identity, and found societal stability by using the practice of randomly assigning civil servants to different parts of the country. Sending the over 120,000 civil servants to work away from friends and family, immersed in a new culture, has led to intercultural exchanges, new friendships, and even many marriages that resulted in children whose parents belong to different tribes. Increasing contact across tribal groups led to thousands of new personal relationships, which reduced prejudices and created a shared national culture.

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  • What this West African village's Ebola fight can teach the U.S. about COVID-19

    When news of COVID-19 arrived in the West African Village of Dirty Box Junction, community members and local government were ready to act due to lessons learned from mistakes made during the Ebola outbreak of years earlier. The village along with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa immediately enacted measures – state of emergencies, mandatory screenings, and contact tracing, to name a few – that have kept their case count low, while the U.S. continues to see cases and deaths increase.

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  • Could a Simple Intervention Fight a Suicide Crisis?

    In the 1960s, a psychologist and a team of researchers in San Francisco began sending “caring letters" as a means of suicide intervention, but the practice didn't continue outside of the research study, despite showing positive results. Today though, a clinical psychologist has begun to reintroduce the intervention, via text messages and emails, as a practice to specifically help U.S. service members and veterans.

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  • EdNext Podcast: Teaching the Declaration of Independence with a Video Game

    Nationally, civic courses lack rigor, partly because few states require coursework in civics. A new video game called “Portrait of a Tyrant,” based on the Declaration of Independence, could change that. “Let’s gamify a story,” said Danielle S. Allen, director of the Democratic Knowledge Project. In this episode, the creators of the video game share the challenges that exist for creating civics curriculum and the way this game can bridge that game between students and history.

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  • New app helps Inuit adapt to changing climate: ‘It's time for the harpoon and computer to work together'

    The Arctic Eider Society, an environmental and social justice organization based in Nunavut, developed an app called SIKU that allows users to enter real-time data on conditions in the arctic. Inuktitut hunters use the app to alert others to hazardous ice conditions and observations about wildlife and vegetation. The app is funded by private foundations as well as federal and indigenous governments and has over 6,000 users. Users maintain intellectual property rights of their data and the app respects traditional knowledge by encouraging indigenous communities to merge old ways with new technologies.

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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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  • Reclaiming Indigenous Legacy One Beer at a Time

    A coalition of Native American–owned breweries is using lagers and ales to educate the public about their heritage and to correct the racist narrative about Indigenous peoples’ relationship to alcohol. For example, Skydance Brewing Co. in Oklahoma labels its beers with names that pay homage to the experiences of Native Americans. “It’s important that we have Native American entrepreneurs tell our story for ourselves,” says Jake Keyes, the brewery founder. “For us to reclaim it.”

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