Refugees find temporary havens on Airbnb

An ambitious plan for the 69-acre Regent Park neighborhood is disrupting entrenched notions of class, race and religion, at a time when concerns over income inequality and immigration are growing.

A nonprofit organization, the Internationals Network for Public Schools, delivers a first-class education to the children of illegal immigrants, helping to break the cycle of poverty and provide them a path to advance in life.

Many young Latina women live their lives in fear of gang violence. The Montgomery County Street Outreach Network rescues girls in danger and offers services to them in order to help them change their chances of success.

Since 1995, Pragnachaksu has paved a path to empowerment for blind women in India, offering academic and vocational classes in addition to braille instruction. The school provides free housing and tuition for girls looking for primary and secondary education, a service that is usually unavailable to the country's eight million blind citizens, and to visually impaired women in particular.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt, founder of the charity Parkrun, never set out to create a revolution. All he wanted was a low-pressure space to run. Now, his organization supports over 1,600 community running events around the globe, with an expected one million participants by 2023. This is part of a trend of “people’s innovation,” or the idea that innovation can come from users rather than just executives. Parkrun exemplifies the inclusive spirit of people’s innovation and the positive impacts it can spread all around the world.

The Kansas City school district and a group of local nonprofits are implementing a new software management system that will allow partners to access student data from a range of sources. The data-sharing agreement will paint a more holistic picture of students and, in the future, allow teachers and others to make informed interventions when appropriate.

Pomegranate Kitchen in Wellington, New Zealand employees refugee women from around the world. The kitchen, which operates collaboratively rather than in a hierarchy, encourages these chefs to grow their cooking and managerial strengths as well as overcome cultural boundaries in order to become financially independent.

As colleges and universities across the United States have shifted to online classes and shut down their campuses, not every student simply has the ability to move home. To help support these students, many of whom are low-income or international, the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project began working with local communities to find housing for displaced students, as well as to provide other support like money or supplies.

Activists in Berkeley, California, are filling in what they say is a gap in homeless services during the coronavirus outbreak. Volunteers are safely delivering food and other supplies to those without shelter.

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) provides basic necessities, hot showers, English classes, and social interaction for refugees in Greece. JRS also opened a Women Day Centre which catered specifically to the needs of refugee women, providing them with health care, clothing, showers, and haircuts.