In one revolutionary language, a community taps the power of touch

With the promise of community care, psychiatric wards were unlocked 30 years ago. Today, the sickest patients live in squalor.

A non-traditional program called the Family Independence Initiative (F.I.I.), uses a radically different approach from the traditional American social service model to empower entire families alleviate themselves from poverty. The results in multiple states thus far have been so striking, that this model of self-sufficiency may be able to have a significant impact reducing poverty nationwide.

Healing trauma has never been an easy process but programs like Healing Hurt People help to promote recovery in traumatized, angry young men. This program, in partnership with local medical services, aims to provide therapy in place of violence, which would only cause more trauma down the road. Those who stick with the program have found great success in overcoming their pasts.

"A social secretary for people who have been deprived of the forms of communication that are now ubiquitous almost everywhere except for prisons," Renea Royster is part of a network of organizations (including Pigeonly, Infolincs, Inmatefone, and Phone Donkey) helping prisoners keep in touch with people on the outside.

In the United States, the incarcerated feel like they have no voices and their mistakes that led them to jail go unacknowledged. A documentary film spotlights the IF Project, a writing program that encourages female inmates and recently released felons to write down what they would have done to change the path they went on. With police and teachers as mentors, the convicted have support transitioning into society and can reflect on what they can do to change their lives for the better.

The Islamic State's recruitment of women draws big attention. But less noticed and more important are efforts in Islamic countries to raise the number of women in religious leadership, despite a long tradition against it, as a potential, effective antidote to the IS recruitment efforts – preventing young women (and men) from joining radical groups.

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.

Young adults who decide to abandon their cloistered Jewish communities have only one another to help them navigate the alternate reality of modern-day New York. 'Footsteps', is a nonprofit organization that brings formerly ultra-orthodox people together to talk and learn to navigate their new worlds, while also bringing in social workers and providing GED classes. For individuals leaving their families, life can be extremely difficult, but this group seeks to create a more positive transition to the secular world.

To give support to struggling families without prescribing solutions requires respect and discipline. The Family Independence Initiative (F.I.I.) encourages low-income families to define their own goals and work towards them in mutual support groups, while carefully documenting their successes.

New apps like Tap Tap See and Be My Eyes are helping blind people solve everyday problems by combining smartphone video technology with an army of volunteers. The app allows a blind individual to take a photo or video of an item that the person needs to "see"; it then either automatically interprets the photo and announces it aloud to the user, or, if the app itself cannot identify the object, sends it to a real person somewhere in the world who can.