1. What are three to six key points or impressions that you will take away from these stories?

I took away several key points from the two stories in my collection. Of the first story titled “Take this Apartment and Call me in the Morning”, I took away the key point that housing and health care are very closely correlated and hand in hand with each other. This also means that health of individuals will improve with better housing conditions. In the second story titled “Beyond the Business Suit”, I took away that inner-city kids learn different traits to survive on the streets, such as avoiding eye contact, which can translate to negative traits when they go to apply to job positions. I also learned that a lot of managers are often too busy to tell the younger people that they employ what could help improve or hinder their future career opportunities  

2. Write a 200-word reflection that engages, analyzes, critiques, expands upon, and/or questions what you read or listened to.

The two readings that I mainly chose to focus on were articles titled “Take this Apartment and Call me in the Morning” and “Beyond the Business Suit”. I liked both of these stories because the first one addressed how individuals housing needs and healthcare coverage were closely connected and the second focused on how inner-city kids could better their opportunities to get a job. The first article was a podcast about a woman who went through brain trauma from being beaten by her husband while also being 7 months pregnant, having an emergency C-section, and eventually leading to her becoming homeless for over 10 years. I thought that this was an extremely deep story and really showed how individuals could be impacted from traumatic experiences and changes their entire life. In regard to the second story, an organization called Year Up focuses on helping kids from disadvantaged backgrounds opportunities locking in jobs with big companies by teaching them how to present themselves and speak to individuals in corporate America. Of individuals who entered the program, only 11% of them did not end up perusing a college degree. I believe that organizations like these are ones that determine where the youth in our communities will lead to change in the future. It is also predicted that over the next decade, a shortage of over 14 million college-educated workers will be created, meaning that programs like these have a huge upside potential to fill gaps in the upcoming workforce within the US.

  3. Share your reflections on your experience reading, watching or listening to the solutions journalism stories. Did you learn new information; gain new understanding; see things with a different perspective than you had in the past? Did the stories reinforce an idea or thought you'd previously had?  Did you meet new people, or learn about opportunities you were previously unaware of? 

After reading and listening to both of the articles that I chose, I learned and there is believed to be a strong correlation between housing and health care. I also learned that how inner-city kids present themselves and speak during job interviews and first encounters with individuals greatly effects their job retention rate. Both of these stories reinforced the ideas and opinions that I already had about both healthcare and housing being related as well as giving the youth from disadvantaged backgrounds opportunities with big companies. I learned about the new opportunity offered by the organization “Year Up”, which helps underprivileged kids prepare and learn how to present themselves for large organizations. 

  4. Were there other stories this week that you’d like to give an “honorable mention” -- that you enjoyed, but were not your top choice to share?

I would give an honorable mention to the story titled, “Meet the Social Entrepreneur Behind Africa’s “Uber For The Farm”. This entrepreneur focuses on “fighting poverty and scarcity in Africa’s remote rural communities”, specifically focusing on the countries youth. His company Hello Tractor reached more than 250,000 small holder African farmers within a short period of time of the 220 million farmers across Africa living off of roughly $2 a day. His company then allows these small farmers to have access to faming machinery. Through the connection of smallholder farmers to machinery makes panting 40 times faster and costs 1/3 as much. 

5. What else would you like to share?

I think that this website is very easy to navigate and find interesting stories that are filtered by different categories. I enjoyed reading through some of the stories and listening to the podcasts.