Solutions Journalism Network

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The Landless Workers Movement in Brazil is fighting for land access for rural workers and is breaking up unequal land monopolies by squatting on privately-owned vacant land. This practice attracts the attention of the federal government, which assesses whether it can buy the land and provide it to the movement to live and farm on.

The Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education System, or PISCES, pairs cybersecurity students from Metropolitan State University of Denver with civic institutions in need of cybersecurity help, such as fire departments, county governments, and school districts. So far, the program has provided services to 10 organizations while also allowing students to get real-world experience in their field.

The Community Action-Led project, facilitated by Youth Awareness For Peace And Development, trains community members in civic engagement and grassroots governance to encourage them to become more active in local matters. The initiative has educated at least 2,000 people in Jigawa State.

New bills passed by the state governments in Washington and Massachusetts are starting to make the states’ tax systems more equitable by increasing taxes on the wealthiest residents.

The nonprofit YIAGA Africa is increasing voter participation in general elections by providing grants to youth across Nigera looking to launch their own voter engagement projects. The grant recipients help people register to vote, run awareness campaigns, and work with local organizations.

Organizations in politically divided states like Arkansas, Idaho and Ohio are hard at work to protect direct democracy through community organizing and education. These groups have rallied to pass measures like minimum wage increases, medical marijuana and have even organized voters to fail ballot measures like Ohio’s recent Issue 1.

Act 88 provided $45 million of state funding to counties looking to cover election expenses like ballot sorting machines and poll worker pay. The funds were extremely useful in covering the cost of an election, which can be quite expensive. Several counties that received the money are opting to rework their 2024 budgets to account for another round of funding.

Permitting is an important, and mandatory, part of new development projects in clean energy and forest management to ensure compliance with various regulations relating to the environment and land use. It also gives communities a chance to be heard during public comment. But the process is so lengthy that it can halt projects for years.

To encourage older people to vote amid targeted intimidation and harassment, Age Nigeria Foundation held regular seminars built around political education and also provided emotional support through daily phone calls and access to psychologists. The organization also covered the cost of transportation to the polls, allowing senior citizens who had been hesitant to vote to cast their ballots.

In an effort to fight government corruption, an initiative called Tracka monitors public spending allocations and holds town hall meetings in communities across Nigeria to educate residents about the budgeting process. The organization has engaged 967 communities and helped hold officials accountable for projects that were funded but never completed, such as an electricity substation in Kawu.

Oregon was the first state to implement automatic voter registration, which allows government agencies such as the DMV to share residents’ information with election officials. Roughly 94 percent of eligible residents are now registered to vote, and the state hopes to expand its approach to Medicaid recipients, but federal regulations may complicate that process.

In the wake of violent incidents, administrators at two Brooklyn schools gave students space and agency to organize rallies and events protesting gun violence. Students at Williamsburg Charter High School gathered roughly 4,000 signatures in their petition for improved prevention programs.

In an effort to fix the climate movement’s voter turnout problem, the Environmental Voter Project’s 6,000 volunteers use behavioral and data science in their outreach campaigns to encourage environmentalists to become consistent voters so the issues they care about are prioritized by politicians.

Following unfounded concerns around widespread voter fraud, Texas instituted new ID requirements for residents voting by mail. But the changes resulted in roughly 12,000 mail ballot applications and more than 24,000 mail ballots being rejected during a primary election, leading legislators to pass adjustments to the law for future elections.

Following violent disruption during campus elections in 2021, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, implemented an electronic voting process which allowed students to cast their ballots online via a university portal. Some students who had previously abstained from participating in elections due to safety concerns were able to vote, but the platform also experienced technical glitches and fears around cyberattacks, which left some students unable to cast their ballots.

In Australia, voting has been mandatory since 1924, with failure to vote punishable by fines up to $79. The country sees an average turnout of 90% for its federal elections, not just due to compulsory voting, but also because of automatic voter registration, mail-in voting, Saturday elections, and extensive outreach with populations unable to vote in person, not to mention their tradition of handing out "democracy sausage" at the polls.

After Georgia implemented an automatic voter registration system that’s integrated with driver’s license applications, the percentage of state residents registered to vote increased from 78 percent to 98 percent over four years. Election officials are also automatically updated when a voter changes residences, streamlining the process for updating voter records.

The Yucca Mountain project, intended to safely hold radioactive spent nuclear fuel from around the country, was paused after resistance from Nevada locals and politicians.

The CitizenApp allows Zimbabweans to anonymously report instances of government corruption, which are then made available to law enforcement officials and investigative journalists. The app has attracted 580 users since its launch in March 2023.

The U.S. Board of Geographic Names and the Oregon Geographic Names Board are changing offensive and racist geographic place names in the state. When looking to change a name, the boards reach out to community members and experts for recommendations. They also review new name proposals that locals submit for both unnamed and named locations.

High school junior Ezra Beinart founded an initiative that invites Palestinians to speak with young American Jews via video chat. The goal of the project, which has hosted six speakers so far, is to introduce Jewish teenagers to perspectives on Israel-Palestine that they may not be exposed to within their communities.

In an effort against book bans, the city council of El Paso, Texas, unanimously passed a resolution that mandates every public library in the city to include a section of banned books featuring the stories of historically marginalized people.

Conecta Arizona is a WhatsApp-based Spanish-language news service originally created to help combat misinformation in migrant communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years since its launch, the service reaches more than 100,000 people and partners with freelance journalists and experts to provide information on voter registration, mental health resources, immigration laws, and more.

For its mayoral elections, Minneapolis uses ranked-choice voting, a process that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than choosing just one. The system, along with the state's culture of civic engagement and its ease of voting, is believed to have contributed to record-high turnout during the 2021 election, when more than half of registered voters in the city cast a ballot.

The Viequense Women’s Alliance combines the knowledge from community youth and experienced advocacy mentors to develop community leaders who are educated on current issues and technology. Women of all ages join together to advocate for their human rights.