Archive

Earlier this week, 40 volunteers from YMCA and Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore lent a hand in cleaning out the future building of the SAFE Workforce Development Center. The SAFE Alternative Foundation for Education, Inc, was founded by 2014 OSI Community Fellow, Van Brooks, to help young people from the Franklin Square neighborhood where […]

Last week, the 2018 cohort of OSI Community Fellows held their monthly gathering to share the progress of their projects and gather feedback and collective wisdom. For the gathering, at the Parks and People Foundation Stone House, 2018 Fellow Ciera Daniel offered an update on her program, the Young Kings’ Leadership Academy, and gained insight […]

Last Thursday, OSI’s Addiction and Health Equity and Criminal and Juvenile Justice programs hosted a forum on Building Power Within a Statewide Coalition with DaMareo Cooper of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which led the effort to pass “Ohio Issue 1,” a ballot initiative to reduce drug possession offenses to misdemeanors and reallocate criminal justice savings to […]

Baltimore Dance Crews Project (BDCP), an organization co-founded by 2015 OSI Community Fellow, Brian Gerardo, debuted its 2019 video this week. Watch it here. BDCP, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary, was started by Gerardo, a dancer and former teacher, and Cynthia Chavez as a way to strengthen relationships with students in Baltimore City, giving […]

From May 31 to June 2, FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, an organization co-founded by 2015 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow Hannah Brancato, will blanket the National Mall with 3,000 stories from survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence. Open Society Foundations is proud to be the premier sponsor for the Monument Quilt. Please come out to bear […]

Recently, 2017 OSI Community Fellow Shantell Roberts was named by Governor Hogan to serve on the State Child Fatality Review Team. The purpose of the CFR team is to prevent child deaths by understanding the causes and incidence of child deaths; Implementing changes within the agencies represented on the State CFR Team to prevent child deaths; […]

On Thursday, OSI’s Karen Webber and Emily Faxon joined OSI grantees, including staff of the Positive Schools Center and Advocates for Children and Youth, and representatives from schools districts throughout the state at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law’s Center for Dispute Resolution’s  Maryland School Restorative Approaches Roundtable. At the event, OSI and […]

On Thursday, May 30 and Thursday, June 27, OSI-supported Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition and BRIDGES Coalition will be holding luncheon events, “Places of Worship, Social Justice, and Harm Reduction.”  During these events, the organizers will engage in strategic discussions on social justice and harm reduction efforts to end the overdose epidemic and War on Drugs. […]

This Saturday, May 11, the Baltimore Dance Crews Project (BDCP), an organization co-founded by 2015 OSI Community Fellow, Brian Gerardo, will hold a 10th Anniversary I Can B’more Concert at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Gerardo, a dancer and former teacher, and Cynthia Chavez started BDCP as a way to strengthen relationships with students in […]

During the 2019 General Assembly, state legislators passed a broad education package that includes expansion of restorative practices statewide. In recent years, OSI has worked with Baltimore City Schools to pioneer implementation of restorative practices throughout the district, and 55 of the city’s 180 schools have already begun implementation or are scheduled to do so […]