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.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 the animal. The Wildlife Research and Conservation Society uses chili smoke and beehive fences as natural methods to divert elephants away from farmers’ crops. Since they started their work, 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.
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.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1318842/work-to-save-ph-eagles-wont-stop-for-pandemic?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jhesset Enano
Philippine Daily Inquirer
9 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Despite restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippine Eagle Foundation is turning to digital tools and the internet to continue their work of saving the critically endangered species. Since March, the organization rescued four eagles and used telemedicine via the Messenger app to share proper information about how to care for the birds. However, weak Wi-Fi signals sometimes get in the way of treatment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/its-your-baby-and-its-like-wow-3-d-images-from-ultrasounds-allow-blind-parents-to-feel-their-infants-face/2020/08/07/05241892-a4d7-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Debra Bruno
The Washington Post
9 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
3D ultrasound print outs help doctors perform non-invasive surgery in utero and provide blind parents with images during pregnancy. Doctors at Johns Hopkins hospital first used 3D models to improve surgery for spina bifida in utero. By placing one inside a soccer ball doctors can practice ahead of time for a less invasive procedure. A sonographer at the hospital expanded the approach to create 3D ultrasound models for patients who are blind. Some caution that ultrasounds are just diagnostic tools, but providing a picture of their ultrasound to someone who cannot see it in the traditional sense is powerful.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-gun-violence-summer-2020-play-streets-20200808.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Samantha Melamed
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network)
8 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Philadelphia's PlayStreets program is a nearly 60-year-old program that began as a meal service during the summer "hungry season," when school lunches are not served, but has evolved into a summer camp on 300 city blocks. Fifty blocks are designated "super streets," where high levels of poverty and violence are met with extra resources. On top of the usual meals and games, the city provides play equipment, DJ dance parties, and mural making. In a summer of extreme violence, neighbors say it also provides a sense of security and normalcy, which police credit as a violence-preventive measure.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/scotland-violence-prevention-navigators-emergency-room?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Alasdair Lane
Reasons to be Cheerful
7 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
In Scotland, the Navigators program performs violence interruption work in seven hospitals, at the bedside of victims of violence, with counseling and connections to social services to nudge people into safer lifestyles. Because Navigators act independently of the police and other authority figures, and because their service follows clients into the community, they are able to win the cooperation of 65-90% of those they approach. A survey of 100 clients showed 23% fewer emergency room visits in the year after cooperating with the program. Navigators started after violence in Scotland raged in 2005.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/us/arizona-covid-19-cases-decline/index.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Dakin Andone
CNN
6 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
In May, Arizona began removing coronavirus restrictions after seemingly containing the spread of the virus, but by June, the state's caseload was in a drastic incline. Learning from the mistake of reopening too soon, officials paused the reopening and reimposed measures such as mask wearing and business closures. Since then, the caseload has decreased significantly and earned praise from White House officials.
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/08/06/asu-study-team-kids-may-improve-perception-of-police-through-cop-kid-activities?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Anthony Wallace
Cronkite News - Arizona PBS
6 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
About 170,000 schoolchildren in four states have participated in the Team Kids Challenge, which promotes healthier relations between youth and police by pairing them in charity work to solicit and distribute donations. Based on research showing Black and Latinx youth distrust police much more than white children do, the program was found in a new study to significantly improve kids' perceptions of police. The study did not measure how long this effect lasts or why it fails, when it does. A researcher also cautions that real trust in police must be earned through good policing.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/searching-with-the-mothers-of-mexicos-disappeared?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Ana Karina Zatarain
The New Yorker
5 August 2020
Text / Over 3000 Words
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.
https://missionlocal.org/2020/08/locals-who-know-sunnydales-housing-projects-well-flattened-a-covid-19-outbreak?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Lydia Chavez
Mission Local
5 August 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Community leaders in Sunnydale, CA contained a coronavirus scare through swift responses, appeals to the community, contact tracing and establishing neighborhood test sites. An emphasis on public education in the neighborhood was also essential to the efforts. The hyperlocal response, which was unique to the community and catered to its needs, was lauded by health workers.
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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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