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

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  • A Tale of Two Karens

    Braver Angels formed after the 2016 election to depolarize politics. The group’s Red / Blue Workshops bring together equal numbers of liberals and conservatives for structured conversations to help people build trust, understand one another, find commonalities, and learn lessons to bring back to their communities. It is rooted in couples and family therapy, with an emphasis on active listening and reflecting back what you hear. Instructions for organizing a workshop are on the group’s website and they have about 11,000 members, with a recent online event, Hold America Together, attracting 4,500 viewers.

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  • Cooperation and Chocolate: The Story of One Colombian Community's Quest for Peace

    Plagued by an internal war, a group of villages in Colombia created a “Peace Community,” declaring themselves neutral in the conflict and focusing their efforts on cultivating the 150 hectares of cacao trees in collectively owned plots to sell to global markets. While villagers still experience violence, the earnings from their crops go into a collective pot and the community decides together how to distribute the funds. “To them, this is actually a very profound act of transcending traditional capitalist society models and building something together,” says an anthropologist who has studied the community.

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  • How Youth Turned the Tide in the 2020 Election

    A team of young people helped Kirsten Harris-Talley win a seat in the Washington state legislature. The 63 young people, ages 12 to 22, did more than the traditional behind the scenes work, like phone banking and door knocking. Rather, the young campaign workers participated in strategy meetings, ran the campaign’s Instagram account, and shaped the campaign’s climate justice and youth rights platforms. Ten of the young people were given paid fellowships and carried out responsibilities in all aspects of the campaign, such as voter engagement and fundraising.

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  • Lessons From Portland's Protest Movement

    Organized groups of volunteers helped sustain over four months of Black Lives Matters protests, with centralized information sources keeping the public informed and essential support services provided. A network of over 160 medics tended to protesters' health needs and organizers provided air filters to deal with tear gas. Protestors getting out of jail were given food, water, and other resources, and affected neighborhoods were cleaned up by teams of volunteers. Such support created other ways to participate while also providing critical infrastructure to sustain months of protests for racial justice.

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  • What Happens When Essential Workers Need Child Care?

    When the coronavirus pandemic complicated child care options for essential workers, a care work activist in New York devised an initiative to better connect parents with care networks and redistribute money to those who needed it. Although not every facet of the initiative has been successful or sustainable, hundreds of parents have benefitted from the service.

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  • How Portland Protesters Keep Each Other Safe

    Behind the nightly protests against racism and police brutality on Portland's streets for more than five months stands a network of street medics and mutual aid groups dedicated to equipping and protecting protesters, and treating their injuries after clashes with police. Portland's already-vibrant street medic community responded to the policing protests with emergency medical care. Their work, plus that of other mutual aid groups, has taken on an added dimension during the pandemic, with masks and hand sanitizer added to the list of supplies.

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  • What Comes Next for Portland's Protests?

    Black Lives Matters protests have been sustained by an autonomously organized mutual aid network providing a range of services for protesters and community members. Requests for information and assistance are sent using encrypted communication. The groups provide medics, public protest art, legal and financial aid, and even mechanics to service protesters’ cars and a group that helps protesters replace glasses that were damaged or lost due to police encounters. The extensive mutual aid network enables flexibility to respond to a diverse set of changing needs, sustaining protests longer than in other cities.

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  • Indian Women Turn to Ancient Grains to Feed Their Families and Their Futures

    In the face of climate change, the nonprofit SABALA is working with nearly 2,000 women farmers in India to participate in millet farming, which can also strengthen community food security and empower women. Using traditional farming techniques, farmers can cultivate 15 to 20 of the climate-resistant crops on a 1-acre plot. Due to the success with millet farming, nearly 300 of the women came together to start a cooperative to process surplus millets and sell the grain to the local community.

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  • In Brazil, Women Candidates Find Strength in Numbers

    Collective, or shared, candidacies, where groups of candidates to run for a single elected position in Brazil, has helped elevate women and other marginalized groups with progressive platforms to rise to power. From 2016 and 2018, 22 of the 98 groups that ran were elected. In 2020, 41% of the joint candidacies were led by women. A national bill to formalize collective candidacies has stalled since 2017, so one member of the group is formally elected, and is the one to cast votes and give formal speeches, while the others are hired as advisers but still are empowered to write and propose bills.

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  • A Better Option For the Gig Economy

    Platform co-ops are providing a third option to the gig economy and traditional employment. Stocksy United is a photography cooperative which is owned by the independent contractors who are members of the platform coop. All major decisions are made through voting by photographers and each member benefits from the flexibility of being a contractor without the uncertainty typically associated with gig work.

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