This Oakland climbing group is getting more Black people ‘psyched' about the sport

Women of Winter helps train women of color to become professional ski instructors and make the sport more accessible and diversified. Women from across the country come to join the program, receiving a sense of community and access to scholarships to attend events to further their education and experience.

Obesity has become a health crisis for many women in the African-American community, but a group known as GirlTrek is working to change this by making exercise a social norm and creating supportive connections between women with shared goals. This new organization, which works to identify barriers that many in this community face, channels African-American history to encourage black women to walk their way toward better health.

Minds United Football Club hosts weekly sessions for people to join together and play football, while also addressing their mental health and well-being. Minds United, and similar sports clubs, aim to create a “we-agency,” providing people with a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves that allows them to feel empowered and supported. Sports groups like Minds United foster community among people who may be experiencing loneliness or mental health issues and are in need of a healthy outlet, particularly for men who face significant mental health stigma.

Black Men Heal Yoga is a free yoga class that provides a safe, healing space for Black men looking to explore tools like meditation, mindfulness and movement to combat stigma and take care of their mental health. Black Men Heal Yoga is funded by money raised through social media. 10 classes have been held so far, with more than 50 men being served and about $2,000 in donations being raised.

Arise for Girls is an organization designed to educate young girls about menstrual hygiene, as period poverty and stigma are very apparent in rural areas. The organization provides educational resources, sanitary pads, and provides a sense of community by encouraging girls to connect with each other via WhatsApp. Since May 2021, the organization has helped over 1,400 girls in neighboring areas.

To encourage more Black people to explore outdoors, individuals and organizations in Colorado are working to address underlying barriers such as access to transportation and gear, as well as fear and concerns of safety. Despite the groups still encountering "frustrating" incidents with other outdoor recreationalists, the movement has spread to other states and steadily attracted a growing community of members.

To better serve all communities and increase safety for families, the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation is offering free swim lessons at community pools. Building off of the success of University of Pennsylvania's We Can Swim summer program which offers lessons to "Philadelphia children who might not otherwise have the opportunity to learn," the idea has already been deemed a success given the enrollment numbers.

A highly popular German sports club named Borussia Dortmund is taking advantage of its fanbase and following to promote anti-extremist messages, praise diversity, and celebrate inclusion. They do so in a variety of ways, including elevating and supporting independent fan initiatives like ballspiel.vereint!, requiring fan clubs and members to sign statues that reject far-right ideology, hosting educational field trips to former concentration camps for youth, and donating over a million dollars to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

Bike share programs have helped decrease pollution and traffic in urban areas. However dockless city bike programs are now threatening bike docking stations because they are cheaper and more accessible. Dockless bike programs rely on apps for users to find the nearest available bikes. This new technology and dockless system of bike-share still need to prove that they are a better alternative.

When many Latina immigrant women arrive in the United States, they don't have access to the internet to learn about the resources available to them. Únete Latina, a program run by Latinas, sends mobile phone texts to women with supportive messages in Spanish and with information about relevant news items and public services.