All throughout the New York City, across the country and around the world, community organizers are building personal relationships and holding interventions to keep their neighborhoods safe. They are part of a public health initiative called Cure Violence that is changing the way governments and community organizations are dealing with gun violence.
From childhood until a few years ago, John Yegon believe that digging a hole in the ground, be it for a latrine or a grave, was taboo. Last year, Yegon learned from a public health officer that most diseases are caused by poor hygiene and sanitation practices and mainly by open defecation. He then embarked on a mission to construct pit latrines from metal sheets and wood for his neighbors at no cost.
A women’s organization in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, called Women Development Centre (WODEC) decided last year to start making reusable sanitary towels from locally available materials. WODEC is one of several non-profit groups that are responding to an issue that marginalizes many women and girls.
In Wajir, a consortium of non-profit groups and government agencies have come together to work against rape and the traditional Maslah system that denies justice to those affected.
Although not included in the first phase of organizing the protest, Native American women wrapped blue silk scarves around their shoulders and made a powerful appearance at the Women’s March on Jan. 21. Their attendance was a moment of resiliency, but more than that, it was a show of expertise in the ways of resistance.
While updating identity documents is an arduous and expensive legal process, many non-binary (those who don’t identify as a man or woman) and transgender people have been motivated by November’s election results and are undertaking the process of updating their names, gender markers or both.
A mural in Brooklyn shows a woman with deep-set eyes standing poised between coffee groves and New York City’s tall buildings. Featuring domestic violence survivor Leticia Reyes Garcia, the mural is part of a larger effort to address domestic violence affecting Mexican immigrant women in New York.
