'It Is Safe Here': Women Share The Delight Of Living At Uganda's First Safe Shelter For People With Albinism

The Kids with a Vision Foundation (K-WAVF) provides care and shelter, particularly to vulnerable youth displaced by conflicts. K-WAVF’s team of community representatives also partners with local schools to take youth on educational field trips and provide vocational training. Since its inception in 2013, K-WAVF has extended its reach across five local government areas in the state.

Healing Justice brings exonerees, crime victims and family members from a variety of cases together to share stories, play games, connect and heal together while facing the traumas of wrongful convictions. Since 2015, Healing Justice has hosted 17 retreats, where exonerees and crime victims gather for three days to work through their traumas together.

A New Way of Life Reentry Project creates homes for women as they leave prison, providing a refuge and programs to help ensure a more successful transition into life on the outside. The network of small group homes, started in Los Angeles and expanded to 16 houses in multiple states, boast a 90% success rate. New Way’s approach prizes ordinary homes in residential neighborhoods, unlike jail-like settings common in transitional housing, which generally caters to men. Classes include careers, therapy, and family reunification.

Alcohol has claimed more lives in Rio Arriba County in the past five years than other drugs. SMART, a secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous, provides one path toward recovery, increasingly incorporating scientific findings into treatment as well as support for family members of addicts, helping them change the environment.

The Dallas County deflection program diverts low-level, non-violent offenders (many experiencing homelessness and mental illness) away from jail and toward voluntary mental health, substance abuse, and stabilization services. The program served 918 people last fiscal year and started a newer eight-bed pilot that connected 11 clients with services in its first month of operation.

Several Louisville organizations are addressing mental health care accessibility for youth of color by offering therapy in community spaces like barbershops, libraries, and other familiar environments. This approach aims to reduce stigma and has also made mental health care more accessible by eliminating barriers such as cost and location. Many youths who had participated in the therapy programs reported feeling more open to discussing their mental health.

The four-year ROCA program reaches out to young men in Baltimore at risk of becoming involved in gun violence. Youth workers check in on participants a few times a week and give them opportunities to learn the skills necessary to find a job. The program's lessons are based on cognitive behavioral therapy and remind participants to pause and think before they act.

Re-Entry 2.0 is a virtual program that supports people's transition from prison to life outside by providing moral support, connection, and ongoing assistance. The program hosts a community that includes people who were formerly incarcerated, volunteers, nonprofits, family members, and others who work to address issues like learning new technologies, job placement, and accessing food banks.

An organization aimed at providing peer support for gay black men living with HIV that started in Atlanta, Georgia has now gained an international following. Because the program is not federally funded, data can be difficult to gather; however, "self-reported data from its members including medication type and adherence, CD4 cell count, and demographic information" shows a significant increase in members adhering to their medical regimen.

Sometimes just having someone to talk to can help those who are suffering from depression. The Friendship Bench program in NYC borrows an idea from Harare, Zimbabwe, where healthcare workers—affectionately called Grannies—sit and consult with patients on benches outside of healthcare clinics. The Grannies help people discuss their issues and have had a measurably positive impact on those they’ve reached. In New York, the Friendship Benches connect individuals to peer mentors willing to listen across the city.