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Building for Real With Digital Blocks

Tina Rosenberg

October 15, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Sweden

To get input on city design plans from citizens without any technical knowledge, some city planners are turning to Minecraft, an easy-to-use computer game that allows users to build in a three dimensional environment. Useful for planning public spaces (rather than designing a building), Minecraft has been adopted by UN Habitat to plan everything from soccer fields in Nairobi to a riverbank in Kosovo.

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‘If You're Like Me, You Can't Sit By. This Is America.'

Tina Rosenberg

August 20, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York

Connecting children with volunteer lawyers can greatly assist immigration cases. Nonprofits like the Safe Passage Project and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) work to provide children, often separated from their families, with legal defense. Without a lawyer, many children face immigration hearings alone, adding great trauma to a complicated process. A majority of unrepresented children are deported. Nonprofit legal groups across the US are working to create a safety net of legal counsel.

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Depressed? Here's a Bench. Talk to Me.

Tina Rosenberg

July 22, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Zimbabwe, Harare

Sometimes just having someone to talk to can help those who are suffering from depression. The Friendship Bench program in NYC borrows an idea from Harare, Zimbabwe, where healthcare workers—affectionately called Grannies—sit and consult with patients on benches outside of healthcare clinics. The Grannies help people discuss their issues and have had a measurably positive impact on those they’ve reached. In New York, the Friendship Benches connect individuals to peer mentors willing to listen across the city.

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The End of the Polling Booth

Tina Rosenberg

June 11, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oregon

In Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, the traditional polling place has all but disappeared. In its place is the rise of the mail-in ballot, a convenient, inclusive method where states mail ballots to every registered voter--automatically. Evidence from all three of those states, as well as five California counties with a similar initiative, have showed an increase in voter turnout.

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No Background Check, Drug Test or Credit Check. You're Hired!

Tina Rosenberg

May 29, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Yonkers, New York

Greystone Bakery in Yonkers, N.Y., hires applicants without requiring drug tests, background checks, or credit checks as a way to prioritize future success rather than past actions. The bakery's system of "open hiring" is gaining traction around the country, giving employees a second chance after incarceration or other incidents that usually prove to be obstacles in the job market.

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Busting the myth that depression doesn't affect people in poor countries

Tina Rosenberg

April 30, 2019 |

The Guardian |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: Zimbabwe

Depression and anxiety impact people across socioeconomic levels and geographic boundaries, despite being thought of as mostly isolated to wealthier western regions. Because training mental health professionals can be costly, many countries outside of the west have turned to training lay people in counseling tactics and practices.

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A.I. Joins the Campaign Against Sex Trafficking

Tina Rosenberg

April 09, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Online buyers of sex now have a great chance of running into the NYPD's latest initiative to combat trafficking amongst prostitution: a chatbot called Freedom Signal. Originated by an organization called Seattle Against Slavery, this bot collects solicitors' phone numbers and warns them of arrest, as well as using strategically-placed ads and text conversations with real trafficking survivors. The bot is 1,200% more productive than a full-time staff, 10 times more effective than on-the-street outreach, is currently being used in 13 cities, and makes buyers 50-80% less likely to be caught a second time.

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Fighting Sex Trafficking at the Truck Stop

Tina Rosenberg

April 02, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Findlay, Ohio

Truckers Against Trafficking are making an impact in reducing sex trafficking in the US by educating truckers, their companies, and the law enforcement that intersect with commercial drivers on how to spot sex trafficking and how to respond. To date, this 10-year-old organization has trained more than 700,000 truckers, and does further outreach with initiatives like "Man to Man" (which trains truckers to talk to other men about the issue) and "The Freedom Drivers Project" (a mobile museum about sex trafficking that goes to events like trucker conventions).

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It Takes a Friend to Get a Friend to Vote

Tina Rosenberg

March 19, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

A suite of new voting apps are bringing new technologies to old organizing methods, like asking (or shaming) friends to vote and finding community leaders to encourage voter turnout. These old methods, now called "relational organizing," are coming back into fashion in an age of impersonal elections, when strangers often reach out to strangers to ask them to vote and campaigns spend millions on Facebook and television ads.

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Treat Medicines Like Netflix Treats Shows

Tina Rosenberg

March 05, 2019 |

The New York Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Australia

Australia has found a promising model to make high-priced medicine cheaper for patients, including expensive treatments for Hepatitis C, which the country is now on track to eradicating by 2026. The strategy works similar to the business strategy of subscription streaming services- by paying a lump sum to drug producers, Australia gets an unlimited amount of the drug for 5 years, allowing all patients to get help while ensuring stable profits for drug companies.

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