The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems. We collect and tag every story, providing you with the ability to find coverage of effective or promising ideas and approaches— by issue, location, journalist, and success factor (strategic insights that emerge as patterns).
https://www.thetrace.org/2020/08/gun-violence-marco-vargas-south-central-los-angeles?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Ann Givens
The Trace
13 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
The South Central Leadership Academy was started in Los Angeles by a college student who believes that gun violence survivors like him should lead the community response in finding solutions to violence. Its first year of paying more than a dozen student survivors to learn community organizing skills succeeded in attracting funding to expand to Nashville, Baltimore, and Atlanta. COVID-19 put the latter two expansions on hold, but LA and Nashville continued with well-attended classes learning remotely. Founder Marco Vargas hopes to turn this startup into a national network of youth leadership academies.
https://apnews.com/bcbbea9a87e5fb2c75611f4da65d4a06?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Ignatius Ssuuna
Associated Press
13 August 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
Researchers in Rwanda are using a mathematical approach as part of pooled testing to determine the number of cases of coronavirus in the country and slow the circulation rate. The algorithm they've developed "makes that process more efficient" which has been crucial because of the country's limited resources. There are limitations to where and how this approach would work, but other regions are taking notice of the practice as coronavirus continues to spread across the world.
https://www.malheurenterprise.com/posts/7560/solutions-as-malheur-county-struggles-with-pandemic-other-rural-counties-provide-clues-to-control?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Pat Caldwell
Malheur Enterprise
13 August 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Several rural counties in Oregon and Idaho have managed to slow the spread of the coronavirus through early intervention strategies and community compliance. Although the low population and rural nature of the regions also played a role in the success of the counties, the areas still adopted tactics such as mask-wearing and social media campaigns and implemented collaborative efforts between elected and emergency officials. Because of these efforts, several of the counties have been removed from Covid-19 watch lists.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/13/opinion/beating-coronavirus-with-knives-forks-moving-tables?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Mary Ann Sorrentino
The Boston Globe
13 August 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
Restaurants in Providence, Rhode Island are "repurposing parking lots, waterfronts, and any adjacent land where an al fresco meal can be savored, public health preserved, and restaurant profits protected" during the coronavirus pandemic. Collaborative efforts by various elected officials, health officials, and emergency responders are making the idea to repurpose outdoor areas feasible, and some restaurants have already projected a significant success in profits.
https://talkpoverty.org/2020/08/13/oregon-covid-19-prisoner-hotline?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Celeste Hamilton Dennis
TalkPoverty.org
13 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Portland-based Beyond These Walls, which connects LGBTQ people in Oregon and Washington who are incarcerated to the outside world, created a crisis phone line to provide emotional support during COVID-19, and to serve a watchdog function to hold prisons and jails accountable for their virus-containment practices. Trained volunteers have fielded 369 calls so far, more than a quarter of which concern fears that reporting virus symptoms could land people in solitary confinement. Beyond and its coalition partners can provide safety by letting jailers know their practices are being monitored.
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/blueleaks-law-enforcement-police-lie-detection?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jordan Smith
The Intercept
12 August 2020
Text / Over 3000 Words
When "junk science" forms the basis of the training curricula used by for-profit companies in the business of teaching police interrogation techniques, it can produce mistakes leading to false confessions and wrongful convictions. A number of vendors rely on practices long proven ineffective and debunked as myths, such as relying on interpretations of body language, eye movement, tone of voice, and other physical cues to claim evidence of deception. Genuine evidence-based interview techniques exist that should be used in making police training more professional.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/12/a-taste-of-honey-how-bees-mend-fences-between-farmers-and-elephants-aoe?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Anne Pinto-Rodrigues
The Guardian
12 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
As the habitats of wild elephants shrink, conservationists in India are developing safer ways to reduce the number of conflicts between humans and the animal. The Wildlife Research and Conservation Society uses chili smoke and beehive fences as natural ways to divert elephants away from farmers’ crops. Since they started, there have been no casualties related to human-elephant conflict. The nonprofit Wildlife SOS uses radio collars to track the herd’s movement and alerts local villagers via WhatsApp of any potential conflicts. However, the success of some methods vary depending on the time of year.
http://nmindepth.com/2020/08/12/childcare-centers-see-low-covid-19-transmission?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Shaun Griswold
New Mexico In Depth
12 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Although the pandemic has brought on its own unique challenges, childcare centers in New Mexico have successfully developed safe and effective techniques to keep children and workers safe. At the UNM Chidren's campus, staff limits children to small groups, so if anyone tests positive, the risk of transmission is reduced. Some other centers have also implemented multiple levels of screening upon arrival before a child is allowed to join their group and have incorporated masks into playtime. “Masks are not a political issue for 3 and 4-year-olds. Nor are they a threat to their freedom or anything else.”
https://missionlocal.org/2020/08/426322?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Annika Hom
Mission Local
12 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
San Francisco entrepreneurs are benefiting from several emergency city relief programs which have proven vital to small businesses. The city is funding both The Resiliency Fund and Neighborhood Mini Grants. The former is for businesses across the city with 5 or fewer employees, while the latter is specifically for businesses within seven underserved neighborhoods in the Mission District. To date, both funds have provided over $3 million for store owners who are struggling to pay rent while dealing with plummeting revenues.
https://religionnews.com/2020/08/10/how-a-quarantine-matchmaking-project-for-muslims-found-itself-navigating-anti-blackness?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Aysha Khan
Religion News Service
10 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Covid-19 has closed the places young Muslims go to meet potential spouses so two Muslim women created Eye Meets Soul, a virtual matchmaking service for US Muslim millennials where pairs first chat online without seeing each other. Initially, 10 potential couples led to 3 matches, with one continuing to thrive. However racial biases quickly surfaced, with many participants unwilling to date outside of their ethnic background. Muslims of African heritage report this as a common occurrence with Muslim dating services. Moving forward the co-founders will prescreen people for openness to all racial backgrounds.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/08/10/900882499/in-new-zealand-life-is-ordinary-again-after-101-days-with-no-community-spread?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Laurel Wamsley
NPR
10 August 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
New Zealand has been able to nearly eradicate Covid-19 due to rapid intervention strategies taken by the government that were predicated on quickly identifying clusters of cases and implementing rigorous contact tracing. Although the country went 101 days without a single case reported, a few cases have once again surfaced. However, because residents had already been using a contact tracing smartphone app and were "encouraged to add masks to their emergency kits," many were prepared for the onset of any new cases.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/asia/new-zealand-coronavirus-milestone-intl-hnk-scli/index.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Julia Hollingsworth
CNN
10 August 2020
Multi-Media / Under 3 Minutes
New Zealand went 100 days without a single new case of Covid-19 after implementing strict restrictions which included "no takeaways, no beaches, and no driving outside of your neighborhood." Because of the government's quick action, the county remained in lockdown for only seven weeks. The government is now keeping focus on elimination rather than eradication as it is expected that the virus could resurface.
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Ra'ed Qutena, 段 文慶, Fabio Campo, City Clock Magazine, Justin Norman, scarlatti2004, Gary Simmons, Kathryn McCallum, and Nearsoft Inc
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