Reformed leaders of rival gangs in Lehigh Valley collaborate on a community need: Diapers

Hawaii is one of the states with strongest gun laws and lowest gun death rates. A study found that states with stricter gun control laws, ammo regulation, background checks, and reporting of lost firearms had the lowest injury rates.

The U.S. continues to experience mass shootings, and many Americans deny that tightening gun laws will help. However, countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Norway have reduced gun violence through stricter regulations.

Colombia has attempted to decrease murder and homicide rates by setting up curfews for teenagers, forcing bars to close earlier in the evening, and creating gun laws to prevent the carrying of weapons. As a result of this epidemiological, data-driven approach, along with other governmental factors, the homicide rate has decreased significantly in most of the cities in which it was implemented.

The city of Trenton is trying to reduce gun violence. In Philadelphia, the Healing Hurt People is a hospital-based violence intervention program that employs trauma counselors to help patients suffering from gun violence.

Richmond, California ranked among the highest homicide rates in the country. The city created the Office of Neighborhood Safety to engage the community in the effort to curb gun violence and prevent homicides. ONS works directly with the young people who are at risk and have succeeded in reducing the homicide rate.

First Book Marketplace, which makes quality, new books affordable for children in low-income families, is providing not only improved access to engaging educational materials, but a sense of dignity and self worth that a hodgepodge of used, donated books cannot. Additionally, the books are often used by nonprofits to further create opportunities for family bonding and to stimulate children's development.

One in five seniors reports cutting back on basics like food or heat to afford prescription drugs - for many, cutting back on medicine led to faster health declines, increased hospitalizations and premature death. Sirum, a new nonprofit, was designed to make it easy for institutions to donate medicines with the assurance that they would be safely transported and dispensed to people who needed them.

Global social and economic problems are difficult to change. However, fan-activism fuels the interests of fans of popular young adult fiction. Books such as Harry Potter and the Hunger Games have inspired activist groups that raise awareness of global hunger, reading, and relief supplies to impoverished nations, among others. Being a fan has served as a bridge to become politically active and solve the world’s problems.

A program in Philadelphia is pioneering new ways to treat the urban wounded. By seeing it as PTSD, and not pointing fingers, the city is using mental health tools to decrease violence and heal communities.

In Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, an organization called Save Our Streets Crown Heights (S.O.S.) is taking steps to disrupt violence. The organization is modeled after Chicago's violence interrupters, which employ people from the neighborhood to connect with those most at-risk and disrupt conflicts and retalitory violence.