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The Bluemind Foundation is working with mental health professionals to provide training to hairdressers to teach them how to ask open-ended questions, spot nonverbal cues of distress in clients, provide comfort to those experiencing mental health crises and refer them to trained therapists. The goal of the training is to help fill the mental health care gap in an area where counseling is often not accessible or accepted by society. So far, 150 hairdressers have received the training and been dubbed “mental health ambassadors.”

To increase awareness of cervical cancer and the cancer-preventing HPV vaccine, Al-Ansar radio shares information about the disease, the vaccine and works to dispel speculation and misinformation about vaccines in general to those in underserved and hard-to-reach areas, as they’re often hardest to get vaccinated.

Ahead of a ballot measure to guarantee access to abortion and reproductive health care in Ohio, the Black-led Ohio Women’s Alliance spoke with more than 1.3 million young female BIPOC voters, framing the campaign as a fight for a wide range of reproductive services. Residents approved the constitutional amendment with 60 percent of female voters and 83 percent of Black voters voting in favor.

One Safe Place — also known collectively as a Family Justice Center — is a holistic care center for violence survivors that aims to be a one-stop shop for support services like legal aid, medical care, social workers, mental health support, groceries, child care and job training. One Safe Place opened in July 2022. The 44,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest Family Justice Centers in the world and has served more than 3,000 people, the majority of whom are domestic violence survivors and their children.

Some Canadian provinces are beginning to enact transparency laws that require employers to include salary ranges in public job postings in an effort to close the pay equity gap, particularly as it pertains to the gender pay gap. In the U.S., eight states have already enacted similar laws and studies show states with these laws in place see a 1.5% boost in labor force participation rate and employees are generally more satisfied with their jobs when they feel employers are being transparent about wages.

The Indigenous Teacher Education Program at the University of Arizona trains budding educators to better support students in Tribal communities, with the goal of increasing the number of Indigenous teachers in the school system. Since launching in 2018, the program has produced more than 50 graduates.

The Gonzales Youth Council, which allows young people to advise local government on issues that affect them, has inspired other youth councils to sprout up in neighboring communities. Youth commissioners participate in a paid summer fellowship to learn about city and school district processes, and the council has made several recommendations that have gone on to become ordinances, including fines for adults who facilitate underage drinking.

Cree youth in Calgary, Alberta, are expressing their views and experiences by writing, recording, and performing original music. The program, called Nikamo, is part of a collaboration between a local theater and a nonprofit focused on supporting youth mental health.

Gas flaring penalties have done little to prevent the practice in Bayelsa, Nigeria, so locals are calling for changes like diverting it to produce usable energy and creating strong policies to regulate it.

South Dallas’s GoLink pilot program allows residents to book door-to-door transportation within a designated zone at much lower rates than traditional rideshare programs like Uber. The neighborhood now has the third-highest ridership in the metro area and sees roughly 220 riders per day.

Colleges like Oregon State University (OSU), are re-indigenizing the campus landscape to create a welcoming, healing space and stop the further erasure of Indigenous culture and presence on college campuses. OSU created an ethnobotanical garden, full of Native plants and crops, as well as an Indigenous center for students and staff to gather on campus. These gardens and Indigenous spaces help to show the community how Native plants can sustain people and OSU plans to continue improving its cultural offerings by installing Native signage around campus and holding Indigenous cultural burnings.

After Michiganders approved a constitutional amendment allowing residents to vote early in federal and statewide elections, municipal clerks reported that the state’s first test of early voting in November 2023 was a success with nearly 4,600 people casting ballots.

GARViS, Georgia’s new system for documenting voter records, stores information on roughly 7 million active voters and hundreds of thousands of inactive voters, including their addresses, assigned polling places, sample ballots, and early voting schedules. The George Secretary of State’s Office reports that the new system has helped cut down check-in time on election day from about a minute and a half per voter to about 47 seconds per voter, streamlining the process for both poll workers and residents.

Residents who participated in Michigan’s first year of early in-person voting say they appreciated the shorter lines, the convenience to vote on their own schedules, and the ability to feed their ballots into polling place tabulators themselves. Nearly 4,600 voters cast their ballots early in-person across the state.

In an effort to lower electric rates and move toward more renewable energy, Kauai residents raised funds to acquire and turn the area’s for-profit utility company into a locally owned cooperative, the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC). When it was formed in 2008, KIUC pledged to reach 50% renewable electricity by 2023, and last year it was already generating 60% of its energy from renewables like solar power.

Energy Savers Network helps people cut down on their energy waste by making home improvements like tightening air seals, insulating hot water heaters and replacing lightbulbs. The Network has helped more than 1,000 homes since forming in 2017 and, on average, the improvements have helped cut energy use by about 15%.

To better serve Indigenous students, Durango School District 9-R has created an advisory council for Native American parents, designated specific staff to help support Native students, and developed an Indigenous language course where they can reconnect to their culture by learning Diné Bizaad. Students report that the course is more engaging than learning about Navajo history via a textbook, and the district has shown progress in closing opportunity gaps for Indigenous students, with all of its Indigenous seniors graduating last year.

The Hacey Health Initiative’s Tombey project works to connect young people — especially young girls — with reliable, accurate information about sexual and reproductive rights and health (SRHR), as well as relevant sexual and reproductive health services. The Tombey Project offers an online SRHR course, a “sexiontary” full of SRHR terms and definitions and connections to youth-friendly counseling services. Since 2016, over 3,000 youth have taken the Tombey Project’s online course and it’s estimated that over 100,000 young people across the country have been impacted by the Tombey Project in some way.

In partnership with Indigenous-led fisheries, researchers in British Columbia deployed an artificial intelligence system to automate the counting of Pacific salmon during their migration. The AI-based tool, which analyzes underwater video, can identify some species of fish with 90 percent accuracy, and Indigenous stewards who participated in the pilot project said not having to count salmon manually freed them up for other important projects.

Pastoralists who range on the Enonkishu Conservancy use mobile bomas, portable corrals that allow them to move freely and protect their herds from predators at night. Moving the herds around puts less stress from grazing on fragile vegetation, reduces the risk of disease, leverages livestock to graze invasive species, and allows the land to double as a destination for wildlife tourism rather than being developed by private property owners.

Doulas are becoming a more widely used resource among pregnant people, particularly Black women who historically face racial inequities during pregnancy and childbirth. Groups like The Doula Network and the Southern Birth Justice Network are working to expand doula services by training and connecting pregnant women with certified doulas. Doula care is more holistic and studies show that women using doulas have about a 65% reduction in their odds of developing postpartum depression or anxiety when a doula is present during labor and delivery.

Priya Living is an elder-living community focused on Indian culture. Priya Living has four locations throughout the state and is planning to expand in Michigan and Texas. Rent in the condo-style units ranges from $2,000 to $3,000 a month and currently serves over 530 people. This culture-focused community helps the aging population fight loneliness and find a sense of community with people they can relate to through activities and programming like yoga, movie screenings and down time to chat.

Amongst an increased need for mental health care, Monadnock Family Services is offering group therapy to children to get them in for some level of care as staff shortages make offering individual therapy too difficult. The American Psychological Association found that group therapy is as effective as individual therapy for most conditions — as well as more efficient. Monadnock Family Services offers a variety of groups depending on a patient’s interests and identity, like groups for those who enjoy hiking to groups for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

After experiencing extreme flooding, Hoboken, New Jersey, has reduced its flood risk by rebuilding its sewers to add capacity and designing new infrastructure, like parks, to collect and redirect storm water.

Intercultural mediators are serving a small town’s growing Afghan community by helping attract new residents — particularly young refugees and migrants — to the region. These mediators help newcomers navigate hurdles like accessing documentation, jobs, schooling and health care in an effort to ease the transition period new residents often face.