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

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  • The Anarchic Playgrounds Where Putting Kids At Risk Is The Point

    September 04, 2025 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Germany, Berlin

    Adventure playgrounds such as Berlin’s Kolle 37 put kids in charge of play, giving them the space, tools, and freedom to solve conflicts, learn new skills, and even build their own play structures as adults monitor for hazards from a distance. Research shows that this type of “risky play” can help children mature and learn to navigate complex psychosocial situations.

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  • One Tree at a Time

    August 22, 2025 |

    Transitions Online |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Republic of Moldova

    Moldova's National Reforestation Project, launched in 2023 with a €739 million budget, has planted over 10,000 hectares of new forest (36+ million trees) with a 67% survival rate, demonstrating early success in restoring degraded land and supporting rural communities, though it's currently achieving only half of its annual planting targets due to personnel shortages, supply chain issues, and weather challenges.

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  • How Norway Is Proving That Homelessness Is a Solvable Problem

    June 26, 2025 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Norway

    Norway’s approach to tackling homelessness hinges on collaboration, with the national government providing data, strategy, and support that allows municipalities and local nonprofits to implement the best initiatives for their populations. Since 1996, the country’s rate of homelessness has dropped by nearly half.

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  • How Stockholm Is Sprouting Healthy Trees From Concrete

    March 04, 2025 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Sweden, Stockholm

    The "Stockholm tree pit” model involves digging a pit and constructing a frame underground around an urban tree’s roots, then filling this pit with a mixture of soil and stone to both aerate and fertilize the soil while also allowing rain water to be collected. The circumference of select planted trees increased from 30 to 35 centimeters to 100 and 136 centimeters between 2004 and 2024, even surpassing that of trees without the tree pits that have been there for more than 80 years.

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  • Ethiopia's Utopian Experiment in Gender Equality

    February 07, 2025 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Ethiopia, Awra Amba

    The Awra Amba community is founded on broad values such as gender equality of labor, women’s rights, children’s rights, and caring for the elderly and vulnerable, and residents work together on 15 democratically elected committees to make key decisions. Research shows that the community has achieved higher life expectancy, literacy rates, and measures of gender equality than the country’s national averages.

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  • Inside Africa's Trailblazing Solar Repair Movement

    January 27, 2025 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Zambia

    Nonprofit SolarAid trains repair technicians who can fix solar energy kits. In the 2023-24 financial year, SolarAid’s teams across Zambia and Malawi repaired 2,422 solar products, reducing electronic waste, increasing the lifespan of products, and improving access to solar lights, as well as creating job opportunities

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  • The Urban Gardens Where Gender and Climate Justice Grow

    September 11, 2024 |

    Next City |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Ecuador, Quito

    The city of Quito’s Participatory Urban Agriculture Program creates sustainable access to food by providing land and agricultural training, and it prioritizes empowering vulnerable populations, particularly women.

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  • Beavers Are Back in London — and They're Thriving

    May 13, 2024 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: England, London

    A volunteer-run community organization is reintroducing beavers to London as part of a larger rewilding effort. The beavers are alleviating flooding and helping biodiversity thrive in the eight-hectare public park they live in by building dams and canals.

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  • Mexico's Floating Gardens Are an Ancient Wonder of Sustainable Farming

    April 26, 2024 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

    Farmers in Mexico are keeping a 1,000-year-old tradition alive to produce reliable yields of healthy crops despite facing historic droughts. They're using chinampas, which are man-made “floating gardens” created by placing soil from the lake on top of reeds and grasses.

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  • How a Colombian City Cooled Dramatically in Just Three Years

    March 04, 2024 |

    Reasons to be Cheerful |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Colombia, Medellín

    Medellín, Colombia, is combating the urban heat island effect by creating green corridors across the city. Over 2.5 million plants and trees were carefully selected to maximize impact and planted on buildings and along roads and waterways.

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