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The remarkable floating gardens of Bangladesh

Kalpana Sunder

September 10, 2020 |

BBC |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Bangladesh, Gopalganj, Bihar

Bangladeshi communities are reviving a traditional method of crop cultivation known as floating vegetable gardens to grow food during monsoon season. On these floating organic beds, farmers can grow vegetables like okra, spinach, and snake gourd. They can supply enough food to feed their family and be a source of income. While scaling this approach to other parts of the country can be difficult, many see this practice as a way to adapt to the effects of climate change.

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Online Art Keeps Bosnia's Isolated Seniors Connected in Pandemic

Lidija Pisker

September 09, 2020 |

Balkan Insight |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Our Bridge in Bosnia provided services to seniors to combat social isolation. Despite having to shut down in-person classes due to the pandemic, both groups now use online art and music classes to reach people who are isolated and at risk of depression. The group joined with the Serbian association, Art Aparat, to offer singing, art, and handicraft classes by video. In person connections are preferred and missed, but the group adapted to changing circumstances to provide even more isolated seniors with social connections, and the partnership allows for cultural exchanges.

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The Warsaw Ghetto Can Teach The World How To Beat Back An Outbreak

Fran Kritz

September 02, 2020 |

NPR |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Poland, Warsaw

In the 1940s, typhus spread throughout the community living within the Warsaw ghetto, but cases dramatically decreased in the winter of 1941. While some researchers remain unsure why, others point towards a change in behavior that included increasing hygiene and nutrition practices and introducing social distancing.

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Coastal Louisiana tribes team up with biologist to protect sacred sites from rising seas

Ty Baniewicz

September 02, 2020 |

Southerly |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

Indigenous communities in Louisiana are working with scientists to restore wetland ecosystems and protect tribal mounds along the Gulf Coast through backfilling projects. Depleted oil wells and canals in the area are often abandoned, creating reservoirs of stagnant water that affects freshwater plants and animals. The group has started to identify priority canal sites to fill in and seek funding to kick off the project, which can be challenging to get.

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Can Greek Tragedy Get Us Through the Pandemic?

Elif Batuman

September 01, 2020 |

The New Yorker |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States

Theater of War Productions performs Greek tragedies, using the themes to encourage dialogue and healing from modern community traumas. Beginning with military audiences, participants were asked to discuss the themes in relation to their experiences in the military or as a military spouse. They have since expanded to include other problems, such as gun and police violence. Recently, actors read Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” in their first virtual Zoom performance to about 15,000 people. Themes of leadership during a plague, “fake news,” and conspiracies resonated with audiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Lawmakers want to revive FDR's Depression-era "tree army" to help boost rural economies

Jason Nark

August 31, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network) |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal program to build outdoor recreation facilities, creating thousands of jobs during the Great Depression and building iconic state parks. Delaware programs, like the Senior Corps that enlists the help of people over 55, encourage civic engagement modeled after the CCC. Pennsylvania's Outdoor Corps hires young people to restore public lands over the summer. Congress introduced bills to revive CCC-like initiatives that could support rural economies hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but environmental funding is not a priority of the current administration.

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How Angela Merkel's great migrant gamble paid off

Philip Oltermann

August 30, 2020 |

The Guardian |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Germany

Five years after Germany sparked controversy with a welcoming message to the flood of refugees applying for asylum, more than half of those 1.7 million refugees have work and pay taxes, their youth show strong signs of belonging to their German communities, and more than 10,000 have mastered the language enough to enroll in German universities. Refuting anti-immigrant skeptics meant overcoming, or enduring, enormous social and economic challenges. Despite many bumps, the policy now appears to have avoided the nightmare scenarios foreseen by critics, such as inviting even more refugees.

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The Forgotten Stones That Still Inspire Turks to Help Their Neighbors

Jennifer Hattam

August 24, 2020 |

Atlas Obscura |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Turkey, Istanbul

Building on a history of anonymous charity, a mosque in northern Istanbul started a pop-up communal food bank to help those most impacted by the pandemic. The initiative is one of several mutual aid efforts underway in the municipality, with each paying homage to the nation's historical use of a charity stone - a place where "people who had money would leave some on top of the stone, and those who didn’t would take some, according to their need."

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To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along

Lauren Sommer

August 24, 2020 |

NPR |

Multi-Media |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Mariposa, California

To combat wildfires in California, Native American tribal leaders and government officials are coming together to facilitate “cultural burnings” or controlled burns. Regularly burning the landscape prevents thick, dried out vegetation from catching fire and causing massive wildfires. Tribal groups used to perform this ritual in the 1800s, but as settlers moved West, many of them prevented Native Americans from doing these cultural burnings. While controlled burns can be challenging in places where there’s too much underbrush, these partnerships can bring together indigenous knowledge and wildfire management.

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How a contested region became a model for multilingual coexistence

The Economist

August 22, 2020 |

The Economist |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: Denmark

The border between Denmark and Germany was highly politicized and when it was set, Germans found themselves in Denmark and Danes found themselves in Germany. Each country is required to offer regional schools taught in the other language and some Germans have decided to send their children to Danish schools and vice versa. Over the years this has led to cultural exchanges and better relationships between the groups. It can be hard to convince Germans to learn Danish because there are just about 5.5 million native speakers, and young Danes now prefer to learn English over German.

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