States Ply COVID Unvaccinated with Cash, Beer, Scholarships

Christine Vestal

June 04, 2021 |

Stateline |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Ohio

States and businesses across the country are offering incentives, from entry into million-dollar lotteries, college scholarships, and gift cards to fulfilling fantasies like driving around Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway. Ohio was one of the first states to announce a vaccine lottery in which any adult resident that got vaccinated was entered into one of five weekly drawings to win $1 million. Ohio’s Vax-a-Million drawings were paid for with CARES Act relief money appropriated by Congress. Vaccination rates increased by 28% in the first week after the lottery was announced in Ohio.

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How Philadelphia escaped disaster in the face of a dozen shuttered maternity wards

Nina Feldman Alan Yu

June 04, 2021 |

WHYY |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A large number of hospital closures pushed the remaining obstetrics chiefs to work together to maintain safe and accessible maternity care, especially for low-income and English as a second language community members. The consortium shared best practices and established easily transferrable common electronic medical records. Hospitals triaged patients by needs and transferred them if needed, rather than prioritizing income generation and competition. Doctors practiced a “laborist” model where they were assigned to be on the labor and delivery floor rather than follow a particular caseload of patients.

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Bogota crowdsources a green transport future to cut emissions

Anastasia Moloney

May 26, 2021 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Colombia, Bogotá

Citizen participation in meetings, door-to-door surveys, and via an open-source online platform where residents could edit and add to draft plans resulted in 7,000 citizen proposals to redesign one of Bogota’s major, car-choked, 23-km thoroughfares. Residents as young as 10 years old contributed to design plans that will cut climate-changing emissions and pollution by adding more bike lanes, pedestrian paths, and electric buses and cable cars. City officials spent substantial time listening to residents’ ideas and concerns, including talking with populations that are often ignored by those in power.

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Young People Are Digitally Rebuilding Tulsa's Black Wall Street

Kristi Eaton

May 26, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Urban Coders Guild provides STEM education opportunities to underrepresented communities and is working with local students to build websites for the businesses destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre. While none of the businesses operate today, the program builds awareness of the massacre while also teaching students coding skills to build websites. The course is also considered a “prep” course for the future because it teaches students how to interact with others as well as listen to and accept feedback from others. The group partnered with Tulsa Community College students to create the content and logos.

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Here's how people in the Delta are working to overcome COVID-19 vaccine transportation barriers

Kelsey Davis Betz

May 20, 2021 |

Mississippi Today |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Mississippi

Transit operations have been repurposed to increase access to COVID-19 vaccines among underserved communities in the Delta. A fleet of transit buses that were sitting unused at Mississippi Valley State University now provide rides to and from vaccine sites. Community activists, local transportation agencies, and philanthropic groups have worked together to arrange similar no-cost vaccination transportation for people who need it. The Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi made an initial contribution to support the efforts, though limited advertising has also limited the reach of the programs.

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People Are Using an Ancient Method of Writing Arabic to Combat AI Censors

Hakim Bishara

May 19, 2021 |

Hyperallergic |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: Palestine

To get around algorithms that have flagged and removed Palestinian content, users on platforms like Facebook and Instagram are using an old version of Arabic, dating back at least a thousand years, that doesn’t have diacritical points (dots above or below letters). Converting Arabic into a dotless form in social media posts makes it much more challenging for AI machines to identify because they use a binary code to identify each letter.

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From Appalachian Cities to Hollers, Community Health Workers Are a ‘Course Correction to Inclusion'

Taylor Sisk

May 18, 2021 |

100 Days in Appalachia |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Kentucky

Awareness is growing that community health workers (CHWs) are an effective way to address social determinants of health and reduce health inequities. The success of CHWs is due to the fact that they share life experiences with their patients and their ability to build trust. For example, the cadre of CHWs working in rural and urban Appalachia go into their patients’ homes to provide fundamental care – like monitoring vital signs and blood sugar -- and discuss quality-of-life issues – like nutrition and exercise. Being in the home allows them to gain insight that doctors in an office don’t have access to.

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San Francisco's Filipino Cultural District Keeping Hope Alive After a Tough Year

Oscar Perry Abello

May 18, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

“UNDSCVRD SF," funded by the SOMA Community Stabilization Fund and produced by the nonprofit Kultivate Labs, is a night market held once a month from July to November that features a range of Filipino vendors. There were over 35,000 attendees in 2019 and it generated $300,000 in sales. It also serves as a testing ground to select businesses for Kultivate Labs’ SEED Accelerator Program and grantees for the SOMA Fund. The former provides bootcamps and one-on-one support for Filipino-owned businesses that are located in, or would like to be located in, a permanent space within the SOMA cultural district.

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Washington School kids receive lesson on ‘Participatory Budgeting'

Beverly Barela

May 13, 2021 |

Merced County Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Merced County, California

Student leaders formed the Participatory Budget Committee at a Merced River School and ran the voting process for students decide which initiatives would be funded. The students had a budget of $5,000 to allocate and used actual county voting booths. The winning project was the modernization of campus restrooms. Students learned about participatory budgeting and brainstormed a set of four projects they felt were most needed at the school. They held regular meetings, highlighting the importance of civic involvement.

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Black Mothers Face Dangerous Health-Care Disparities. Can Midwives Bridge the Gap?

Sarah Weiser

May 13, 2021 |

The New Yorker |

Multi-Media |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Memphis, Tennessee

Choices - Memphis Center for Reproductive Health provides midwifery services and trains new generations of midwives, with a focus on improving the experiences of women of color. Midwives played a central role in Black communities for centuries and research shows that women with low-risk births have better emotional and physical outcomes with midwives. Women also express a greater sense of trust and understanding with Black midwives, who can relate to their experiences as women of color in the healthcare system. Midwives take more of a holistic approach to treating women’s emotional and physical needs.

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