Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Worker cooperatives prove your job doesn't have to be hell

    In service industries that traditionally pay and treat workers poorly, worker-owned cooperatives serve as a humane alternative. Worker-owners at eight co-ops in four states describe the difference their jobs make in their working conditions and their lives. They also tell how larger collectives and cooperatives pool resources to help smaller co-ops with the funding and expertise they need, especially when confronted by a disruptive event like the pandemic.

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  • This South L.A. startup will turn your front lawn into a farm

    A startup in California called Crop Swap LA is converting unused front yards into community gardens that can grow crops like kale, rainbow chard, and tomatoes as a way to feed neighbors. Community members can pay for subscriptions for up to $43 a month to receive a bundle of greens and vegetables from the microfarms and homeowners get a share of the profits. Each garden needs to have the proper maintenance, which can make it difficult to scale, but these gardens can help provide access to food to those who don’t have a grocery store in their area.

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  • Wild Basket initiative brings traditional foraging techniques to future generations

    The Wild Basket allows community members of Temiskaming First Nation to gain traditional knowledge about native food sources and foraging techniques while re-connecting to the land and their roots. The initiative also provides a source of native food. The wild foods include mushrooms, fiddleheads, spices, and tea leaves which are sold to restaurants and other community members.

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  • Reimagining a Better World After George Floyd's Death

    Two ways that communities affected by police violence and racial injustice responded to the uprising after George Floyd's murder were block-by-block organizing and participatory budgeting. The first, used in Minneapolis, provided public safety and mutual aid when neighbors formed networks to guard buildings, put out fires, mediate disputes, and deliver aid to people living through a period of unrest. In participatory budgeting, 30 cities turned over control of $400 million in public spending to communities, which set policy based on communal decisions and directed financial priorities.

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  • Community-led alternative to criminal justice resolves conflict, fosters community and protects youth

    Restorative justice healing circles run by Cookman Beloved Community Baptist Church in West Philadelphia have helped resolve hundreds of disputes among youth over the past 15 years using dialogue instead of courts. Bringing together people who were harmed, those who harmed them, and members of the community leads to negotiated agreements that provide justice and reconciliation without leaving young people with a criminal record. Restorative-justice approaches to school discipline in Philadelphia have dropped the numbers of arrests from 1,600 to 384 per year.

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  • These co-op restaurants didn't need to open indoor dining to survive the pandemic

    Two Baltimore restaurants, Red Emma's and Joe Squared, show how running or starting as worker-owned cooperatives gave them pandemic-survival skills in a business climate that killed many other small businesses. By tapping into larger networks providing financing on favorable terms and other expertise, these co-ops used their workers' ingenuity to offer services that didn't depend on sit-down dining. Like many co-ops, they were able to survive the pandemic and preserve jobs where so many traditionally run businesses were not.

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  • Can crowd funding save the media from France's billionaire press monopoly?

    One solution to the increasing monopolization of news media outlets by a few wealthy individuals is crowd funding. In France, Julia Cagé created Un bout du Monde to raise money to intervene in the shareholding of Le Monde Group. Each person, for a donation of €5, receives one vote in the general assembly of participating press titles. Reaching the goal of providing diverse management of the media has been slow, and results are expected once more money is raised. So far, 2,170 people have donated to raise more than €155,821, a substantial amount but a long way from the millions needed to make a difference.

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  • Philly mothers of gun violence victims work to solve their children's murders

    Philadelphia police fail to solve most of the city's growing number of homicides, in part because of the no-snitching street code, a byproduct of the community's lack of trust in police. But the streets do sometimes talk when the mothers of murder victims do their own detective work. A number of cases were solved because mothers turned their grief into a resolve to hunt down evidence that they turned over to the police. Their work grows out of the many support groups they have formed to help each other, and from a YouTube channel that helps them draw attention to unsolved murders.

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  • To feed community members, Crossroads partners with churches, public housing facilities and neighborhood centers

    Lack of transportation can make centralized food pantries inaccessible to those who need the help. So Crossroads Community Services in North Texas partners with more than 100 community groups, including churches, public housing developments, and community centers, to make monthly deliveries to local sites. Those local partners are trusted points of contact to enroll people in the program and get them their food packages. Though it's not as effective as access to quality, affordable grocery stores, this community distribution partner model has decreased food insecurity and improved health in the community.

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  • 'The Beachcombers' town is now famous for fighting climate change

    A hit TV show in the 1970s and ‘80s called The Beachcombers brought the town of Gibsons and its logging practices into homes across Canada. After years of pollution and land degradation, it became one of the first towns in the world to incorporate nature into the municipality’s finances. Developers have to take stock of what natural infrastructure is on their property before they build. The town also launched an initiative to encourage other places to calculate the value of their green infrastructure. So far, 30 of them have signed up across the Great White North.

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