The Birth Control Solution

A local collaborative in Hamilton County, Ohio has reduced infant mortality by initiating regional educational campaigns and creating “sacred spaces” where Black women meet and learn how to become empowered to "tell the government what pregnant Black women needed." The program, which focused on three pilot neighborhoods and included leaders from the largest maternity systems in the county, resulted in the county recording the "lowest levels of infant mortality ever."

The non-profit, Sandy Hook Promise, equips schools and youth with knowledge and tools to prevent gun violence. Founded after the Newtown shooting, the organization couldn’t make headway through policy and legislature, so they turned to people. The founders spent time analyzing how social change happens and took a strategic, generational approach to shifting the culture of gun violence. With much success, they now face the challenge of scaling to a national level.

Bozeman, Montana looks to Fort Collins, Colorado for strategies on what to do -- and what not to do -- when tackling urban planning for rapid expansion. While Fort Collins planned for growth by creating tasks forces to evaluate what citizens need the most in their communities, the city didn't account for the scale of population growth it saw in very little time. Bozeman hopes to emulate the level of civic engagement while also creating better models to predict and serve a rapidly expanding population size.

Two Northern Colorado counties and Fort Collins, especially, face high levels of homelessness. It's not because there are no organizations dedicated to the issue. Rather, a lack of coordination among the veterans' service groups, state and federal welfare departments, and homelessness prevention groups has stymied effective solutions to decreasing homelessness. Now, state-supported Homeward 2020 has implemented a data management system and housing placement accountability program among the service providers. The low-cost model is showing success, and will be rolled out to other regions across the state.

A special accelerated education program named Udaan in India offers a chance for girls aged 11-14 from rural areas to quickly complete their primary schooling. The highly interactive and engaging curriculum teaches girls language, math, environmental science, and gender politics. In 2016 the program joined President Obama's "Let Girls Learn" initiative to expand across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Pakistan and Somalia to reach 3 million girls.

Amid high rates of breast and cervical cancer, Rays of Hope Hospice expanded beyond traditional end-of-life care to include cancer prevention services, providing cervical and breast cancer screenings in rural areas, on-site treatment for precancerous lesions, community education on HPV vaccines, and vaccination distribution to young girls. Since launching its efforts in 2018, the organization has conducted nearly 29,000 cancer screenings for cervical and breast cancer and has helped vaccinate more than 47,000 girls against HPV. The story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center.

Village Health Teams are groups of community health workers helping rural women access family planning services. They travel from home to home offering counseling, education and connection to the resources women need but struggle to access, including condoms and pills, often all without having to visit a health facility. VHTs have reached several thousand residents, both with short and long-term contraceptive methods.

In The Gambia, a National FGM Strategy and Action Plan backed by the government, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Welfare, has worked to translate a legislative ban on Female Genital Mutilation into real community change. The strategy combines policy reform, school and community awareness programs, engagement with religious and traditional leaders, and empowerment programs for girls. Despite FGM persisting in rural communities, FGM rates among girls aged 0–14 have declined from approximately 76% to 45%.

Rwanda has implemented a comprehensive, community-driven cervical cancer prevention program combining door-to-door screening campaigns, free HPV vaccination, and health insurance reforms to cover cancer treatment. Since the initiaives launched, six districts have achieved the World Health Organization’s elimination targets, putting Rwanda on track to become the first African country to eliminate cervical cancer by 2027.

By December 2023, the nationwide campaign had vaccinated about 4.7 million girls; however, Osun continued to experience pushback, with citizens resisting the campaign due to misinformation and a lack of understanding about the vaccine’s significance. The federal government also joined in, adding the HPV vaccine to its routine immunization system, which helped about 4.7 million girls get vaccinated.