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

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  • Get There Fast or Safe? A Crowdsourced Map Gives You the Option

    June 29, 2021 |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: India, Gurgaon

    In 71 cities around the world, users of the My Safetipin mobile app can decide whether to visit a particular neighborhood or plan a travel route based on how safe others deem those places. While the 100,000 or so users, more than half in India, constitute too small a user base to make the mapping app truly universal, its crowdsourced data already have prompted the Delhi and Bogota governments to improve street lighting on streets deemed unsafe because they are not well lit. The app's primary goal is to make the streets safer for women.

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  • Clearing a Path from Prison to the Bar Exam

    June 21, 2021 |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    The Formerly Incarcerated Law Students Advocacy Association at City University of New York's law school mentors people whose criminal records serve as a barrier to pursuing a law career. FILSAA is part of a movement to nurture law-practice dreams and make them a reality by knocking down those barriers, including restrictive use of states' "character and fitness" requirements to become licensed to practice. Before that step, mentors can help people prepare for the LSAT and succeed in law school. Advocates say that lawyers with lived experience can serve clients better by earning their trust more readily.

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  • Recovered Covid Patients Send Their Leftover Meds to Those in Need

    June 08, 2021 |

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    Response Location: India, Mumbai

    Volunteers with India’s Meds For More initiative (MFM) collect leftover unused medications from recovered Covid-19 patients by canvassing their apartment buildings, offices, student clubs, schools, and other locations. Once collected, MFM distributes them to NGOs licensed to work in the health sector, who transport the medicines to marginalized communities in urban and rural areas. Medical professionals sort and pack the medicines and give them to local hospitals and health care centers, who distribute them to patients. The success of the program has inspired similar initiatives in several other cities.

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  • The Group Turning Religious Leaders into LGBTQ Rights Crusaders

    May 31, 2021 |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: Kenya, Mombasa

    Persons Marginalized and Aggrieved in Kenya works with religious leaders over the course of many years to build empathy and understanding towards the LGBTQ community. Faith leaders are often not immediately aware of the goal, but PEMA’s continuous and carefully orchestrated engagement allows them to gradually build relationships, hear personal stories from real people, and learn to preach tolerance. PEMA has worked with 619 religious leaders, 246 of which are currently active, and runs a Training of Trainers program where “converted” religious leaders train their colleagues to increase LGBTQ acceptance.

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  • The Cities Trailblazing Transit Service into the Wilderness

    May 25, 2021 |

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    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Hikers can now catch a ride to their trail of choice thanks to Seattle’s transit system. Bus rides to popular hiking destinations make the great outdoors more accessible for urban populations.

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  • Would You Dine in This Prison?

    April 20, 2021 |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United Kingdom, London

    The Clink operates in four British prisons, teaching haute-cuisine cooking skills and then helping its formerly incarcerated trainees establish productive lives once they're released. The training inside prison features restaurants that cater to the public, plus teaching the skills needed to find and keep a job on the outside. When graduates of the program showed the same inclination to commit more crimes as other formerly incarcerated people, the program provided more reentry supports that have contributed to much lower rates of re-offending. The program plans to expand to 70 more prisons in the UK.

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  • Could a Citizens' Assembly Help Fix Your Democracy?

    April 19, 2021 |

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    Response Location: France

    France is among a growing number of countries piloting "citizens assemblies," in which a randomly-selected sample of citizens is tasked with reviewing and recommending potential responses to a pressing societal issue. The country's assembly on climate change resulted in more than 100 proposals for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, but because they were nonbinding, only about 40 percent of the recommendations were forwarded to parliament.

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  • 4 Clever Ways We're Getting More Shots into Arms

    April 16, 2021 |

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    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, West Virginia

    In the race to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people, innovators in certain places have excelled at getting shots into arms, including in hard-to-reach or vaccine-reluctant populations. West Virginia broke from the herd using national pharmacy chains, working instead with local shops that had a head start in nursing homes. Alaska's Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation, serving indigenous and remote villages, got creative in how it shipped vaccine to roadless outposts. And UK's private and public teams worked closely with immigrant faith communities to overcome vaccine resistance.

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  • Africa's Wikipedia Editors Are Changing How the World Sees Their Continent

    April 12, 2021 |

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    Response Location: South Africa

    WikiAfrica Education increases information about Africa’s diverse languages, cultures, and politics from the voices and perspectives of African people. AfroCuration events enlist the help of young people to create and edit content for Wikipedia. The volunteers receive lessons on democracy and freedom movements and then use that information to create profiles of key events and history-makers. Strategic partnerships provide technical support and other resources, which have enabled hundreds of young people to produce hundreds of new entries and translate many existing entries into indigenous languages.

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  • In France, Accents Are Now Protected by Law

    April 02, 2021 |

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    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: France

    The French National Assembly overwhelmingly passed “the Law to Promote the France of Accents,” which criminalizes discrimination against someone based on their accent. The bill makes linguistic discrimination, or “glottophobia,” an offense punishable by up to three years’ jail time and a fine of up to €45,000 (USD$54,000). Early indications of the law's impact include the normalizing of native accents in national discourse, the appointment of a Prime Minister with a strong accent, and the French national broadcaster FranceInfo’s naming “glottophobia” one of the words of 2020.

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