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Create A New Collection

Collections are versatile, powerful and simple to create. From a customized course reader to an action-guide for an upcoming service-learning trip, collections illuminate themes, guide inquiry, and provide context for how people around the worls are responding to social challenges.

  • Name and describe your collection

  • Add Stories

  • Add external links at any time

  • Add to your collection over time and share!

1. Name your collection

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2. Add Stories

Add stories to your collection from your list of Favorites below, or add stories directly to a collection from Search or Discovery. Anytime you see the collection icon you can add a story. Just click the icon and follow the instructions on your screen.

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Solutions Story Tracker®

Welcome to a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.

15,700 stories produced by 8,900 journalists and 2,000 news outlets from 89 countries. The stories cover responses in 192 countries, in 17 languages. This resource is made possible because of a growing movement of journalists who use solutions journalism to illuminate both problems and evidence-based responses to them.

Learn more about the Solutions Story Tracker.


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  • Can Green Space Be a New Mental Health Treatment?

    Linda Poon
    2018-08-28 00:21:21 UTC
    5

    July 30, 2018 |

    Bloomberg CityLab |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    In Philadelphia, a study has found that turning vacant lots into parks and green spaces helped reduce rates of depression in the poorest neighborhoods. These findings complement previous evidence that providing access to nature and greenery can impact mental health.

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    • 4933

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  • Replacing Vacant Lots With Green Spaces Can Ease Depression In Urban Communities

    Rhitu Chatterjee
    2018-07-23 13:24:38 UTC
    2

    July 20, 2018 |

    NPR |

    Radio |

    Under 3 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    By using a "greening intervention," in which abandoned lots in low-income neighborhoods were turned into parks, researchers were able to determine that having a park in close proximity improved community member's mental health and wellbeing.

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    • 4551

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  • How two Belgian cities turned their pavements into playgrounds

    Anoush Darabi
    2018-07-15 14:48:21 UTC
    1

    June 22, 2018 |

    Apolitical |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: Belgium, Antwerp

    Urban planners in Belgium are creating play spaces, known as the “speelweefselplan,” to give children more room to be outside. The design process includes asking schoolchildren about their routes to and from school, and then planners map out ways to make those routes more interactive. As cities grow and traditional parks are limited, this model shows a way that cities can continue to be welcoming for children.

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    • 4446

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  • Reviving the City: How an Asphalt Plant Turned Into a Public Park

    Laura von Puttkamer
    2020-09-12 21:21:09 UTC
    0

    June 21, 2018 |

    Urbanet |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Mexico, Mexico City

    By participating in the decision-making process, Mexico City residents successfully convinced the government to build a public park instead of an office development. The Parque Imán is 2.4 hectares, includes 163 trees, and the green space can potentially benefit up to 200,000 residents of some city boroughs. While there are some concerns about the soil quality in the park due to the adjacent asphalt plant, the park shows how participation from residents and transparency from the government allowed the public space to be built.

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    • 11118

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  • How 3 Loved-To-Death Parks Are Taking Action: Permits, Poop Bags And New Paths

    Ann Awad
    2018-06-06 22:54:42 UTC
    0

    May 24, 2018 |

    Colorado Public Radio |

    Radio |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Colorado

    As Colorado's popular parks become slammed with visitors park officials are noticing dramatic environmental impacts to the areas. To mitigate against continuous damage, three parks - Garden of the Gods, Conundrum Hot Springs and Hanging Lake - are piloting stricter Leave No Trace policies via targeted outreach and education.

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    • 4093

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  • Paris is building the eco-community of the future right now. Here's how.

    Susannah Shmurak
    2018-06-15 17:59:10 UTC
    2

    May 23, 2018 |

    Ensia |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: France, Clichy-Batignolles, Paris

    Setting the bar high for environmental sustainability can encourage innovation and experimentation. Developers of Paris’ new Clichy-Batignolles eco-district are reducing the neighborhood’s carbon footprint in nearly every way imaginable. Solar panels and vegetation cover the energy-efficient buildings, the water table under the 10-hectare (25-acre) park provides geothermal heating, deliveries are directed to a central drop-off site, and much more.

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    • 4126

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  • Saving Africa's wildlife

    Kevin Sieff
    2018-05-22 01:29:45 UTC
    1

    May 18, 2018 |

    The Washington Post |

    Multi-Media |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Malawi

    Africa's wildlife have made headlines time and time again, as species find their way closer to extinction. There are some pockets of the continent, however that have provide refuge for species and allowed them to not just populate, but thrive. Recognizing this, a group known as African Parks found a way to use these growing populations to repopulate other areas of the continent by transporting animals to newly protected areas.

    Read More

    • 4005

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  • How Saguaro National Park Hopes To Catch Prickly Cacti Thieves

    Tyler Fingert
    2018-06-08 05:25:57 UTC
    0

    April 30, 2018 |

    NPR |

    Multi-Media |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: United States, Saguaro National Park, Arizona

    The National Park Service has resorted to microchipping hundreds of saguaro. Despite extensive legal protections, the iconic cacti are going missing. Rangers can only read the microchip by scanning a suspect cactus, but they hope this move will serve as an additional deterrent to would-be thieves hoping to cash in on the demand for saguaro among building owners.

    Read More

    • 4099

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  • Real-world Minecraft mod: How the popular video game is transforming parks and other public spaces

    Gregory Scruggs
    2019-07-01 15:24:24 UTC
    0

    April 19, 2018 |

    GeekWire |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Serbia, Pristina

    Popular video game Minecraft, an easy-to-use game where users construct the world around them, has been used by UN-Habitat in 40 projects across 35 cities in 25 countries to design public spaces. The accessible platform allows laypeople to quickly mockup what they would want in a public park or space, which is valuable community input for architects and urban designers.

    Read More

    • 7295

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  • How Mount Vernon turned an old industrial site into a stunning park

    Courtney McNaull
    2018-12-19 14:43:55 UTC
    0

    March 16, 2018 |

    Richland Source |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Mount Vernon, Ohio

    Mount Vernon’s Ariel-Foundation Park is largely a success story of balancing historical preservation with recreational growth. The park sits where there used to be a glass manufacturing plant. Rather than hide this, the design of the 250-acre park maintains the identity of the industrial past while still creating a beautiful green space. Through individual leadership, donations from private institutions, and support from the local government, the park is thriving today. (This is the fourth article in a four part series).

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    • 5944

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Please sign in via My Profile before submitting a story. This will allow you to view the status of your submission and get notified if the story is added to the Solutions Story Tracker®.
Filter your search by the language of the story. As the Solutions Story Tracker grows, we are working to include more stories in more languages. Your story submissions can help! Submit stories here.
These factors identify the ways communities overcome the big challenges and help you see the insights. Learn more about the Success Factors here.

Solutions Journalism Around the World

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Solutions In Focus

Discover curated content about themes that matter to you, exclusively from the Solutions Story Tracker. Explore collections, resources and more.

  • Climate Solutions

  • Advancing Democracy

  • Youth Mental Health


Go to All Solutions in Focus

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    Video Tutorials

    Learn how to find what you need in the Solutions Story Tracker in español and in français.

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    Submission Guidelines

    This database is powered by user submissions. Submit a story.

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    Custom Story Alerts

    Get notified when new stories match your interests by setting up custom story alerts in My Profile.

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Solutions Story Tracker® FAQ

  • Solutions journalism…
    • Describes a response to a problem and how it works.
    • Seeks to draw out insights that explain success or failure.
    • Presents the available evidence about the effectiveness of a response.
    • Explains the shortcomings or limitations of the response.
    Learn more.
  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated, searchable database of solutions journalism stories — rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. We vet and tag every story in the Story Tracker, which offers an inspiring and useful collection of the thousands of ways people are working to solve problems around the world.

  • You can learn more about how we source, vet, and tag stories here, as well as how we share them. We also have video tutorials in Spanish and French that show how to use the Solutions Story Tracker to find what you need.

  • Story collections are curated by our staff or other partners to explore a theme, pattern, or trend via selected solutions stories and external resources. Some story collections focus on an in-depth exploration of a topic with solutions journalism; others highlight journalists and how they report on topics. Certain story collections include discussion questions and notes, so that educators and community discussion leaders can lead learners to fully engage with the stories.

  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is powered by user submissions. We encourage submissions from journalists, as well as from anyone who has an eye for solutions journalism. Click here to submit. (Why submit? So many reasons!)

  • You can submit a story directly on the Solutions Story Tracker®. You will be prompted to register or log into the Solutions Journalism Network website, if you are already logged in. (It is free to register!) Logging in allows you to track the status of your submissions under My Profile, as well as save your favorite stories, create story collections and story alerts, and access other helpful features of our website.

  • After you submit a story to us and assign it a topic, it is sent to one of our Solutions Story Tracker team members. Our team member evaluates the story for the four qualities of solutions journalism, and on the basics: The story must come from a news outlet and have a date and a byline. If the story meets our criteria, our team tags it accordingly and adds it to the database. If the story falls short of the mark, our team will include the reason why. We include stories in the Story Tracker that meet our standards of solutions journalism. Inclusion does not mean we support the initiatives, policies, organizations or approaches featured in those stories.

    Discover common reasons why a story may miss the mark for inclusion in the Solutions Story Tracker®.

    Learn more about the history of the database.

  • Solutions Journalism Network features these stories in the searchable database making them publicly accessible to anyone who wants to search for rigorous reporting on solutions to social problems. Any story that is added has the potential to make more impact than its original purpose. Added stories are used in journalism trainings, school curricula, research projects, and independent analysis on issue area trends. This now includes artificial intelligence tools, which are applied for educational value to find stories and support story vetting, as well as to extract insights from the stories. SJN has digital products and newsletters that give new life and exposure to the stories meeting people where they are at. Story data also is used to develop innovative tools to reach the general public with solutions journalism as well as some specific research projects requested by researchers. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of story data or added stories, please contact Lita Tirak.

  • News outlets determine whether all users can access their stories — and some limit the number of stories that anyone can view, or require a subscription. The majority of stories in the database can be accessed for free.

  • We work with journalists, academic researchers and others who feel that our database will support their research. We are especially interested in research that seeks to develop new insights about solutions journalism and its spread and its impact on social problems. Please complete all sections of the Data Request Form, and we will contact you to discuss your request in greater detail.

  • We do not fact-check the stories in the Solutions Story Tracker®. We do ensure that each story comes from a credible news source that has its own editorial infrastructure.

  • We worked with Tara Pixley and Jovelle Tamayo of the Authority Collective, who developed a guide for using equitable visuals. We follow this guide when choosing images for our website.

  • We welcome your feedback and additional questions. Please use this form to get in touch.

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