Embodying Civic Spirit

In Colombia, students in classrooms make decisions democratically. The result has been higher rates of student involvement and achievement.

Neighborhood Centers, a Houston anti-poverty program has a simple philosophy: “The people are the asset, the source of potential solutions, not the problem.” The non-profit has scaled nationally, employing its bottom-up approach to disburse funds in poor communities.

At UC Berkeley, the Blum Center for Developing Economies and the Center for Effective Global Action are working together to formalize development engineering as a field of research - a new generation of engineers committed to making a social impact.

Crises and problems are well-covered in the media. When the media focuses instead on organizations that are doing social good, it has a better effect because then these organizations are more likely to receive support and expand their access.

A correlation exists in Cuyahoga County between the idle youth rate -- base on teens who are neither working nor in school -- and the youth violence rate, according to an analysis done for The Plain Dealer by Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University and a professor of urban social research.

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.

With homicides up 50 percent last year, the D.C. Council is backing a controversial new crime bill aimed at stopping the violence. It’s modeled in part on a 9-year-old program in Richmond, California. Each year, 50 young men at risk for violence are paid to put down their guns. (1st of a 3 part series)

Women4Climate is a new alliance of women mayors from major cities who are determined to act against climate change with or without federal support. Instead, they mentor each other in innovative solutions, cross-promote important causes, and share best practices to help stem the negative effects of greenhouse gas emissions, empowering women everywhere to participate.

A changing demographic can create barriers between government and new residents. Nashville is tackling that with a program that teaches immigrant leaders what the city has to offer.

Using "Creative Capacity Building," MIT's D-Lab established in impoverished, rural areas in developing nations a method of empowering and supporting individuals in rural communities to invent low-cost technologies specifically geared to address the problems or needs of their locale. In 2009, the D-Lab paired with SolCom, a Guatemalan community organizing enterprise, and an international development fund to bring this model to the isolated, impoverished area of Nebaj, assisting locals in creating a Makerspace, or "integrated workshop, demonstration site, training center, and retail shop to complement the activities of microentrepreneurs." The collaboration has fostered an environment for sustainable, grass-roots change, in which the social and intellectual capital needed to create the needed innovations and inventions originate in the community itself.