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NPR •

Mobile home residents band together to keep trailer parks affordable

On a Saturday morning in the ski town of Durango, Colo., a family of five lounges in their pajamas inside a small, rectangular mobile home. This is the trailer Verónica and her family have called home for almost a decade. Down a narrow hallway, there are a couple of closet-sized bedrooms and a small bathroom with a cheerful gnome shower curtain. But the open-floor-plan living room-meets-kitchen is the preferred hangout space. Right now, a kid's cartoon blares on the TV. "To the outside world...
The World from PRX •

How a historic ‘magical bean’ is helping Indigenous groups in Colombia

It’s lunchtime for students at the only school in the small village of Ishashimana, Colombia. Students chow down on plates of rice and lentils at long tables in the cafeteria. This meal will help power the school’s 1,800 pupils through the rest of their day of exams. Although lentils take center stage today, another legume traditional to the Indigenous Wayuu people who live in this region put the small town of Ishashimana and its school on the map. “We worked with the Guajiro bean,” the Ishashim...
The World from PRX •

Cut to USAID funding affects rural regions of Colombia

Kevin Rivadeneira leans over the side of a canoe floating in the Laguna Grande, or Great Lake. He points toward a flock of pink birds in the distance. “Check out the flamingos,” Rivadeneira said in Spanish.Indeed, hundreds of pink flamingos bob in the salty water. This is why thousands of tourists come to the Flora and Fauna Flamingo Sanctuary in Colombia’s remote La Guajira region every year. Rivadeneira runs a local eco-tourism agency here called Perlaguaneque. Since 2020, he’s worked with a t...
The World from PRX •

Companies pursuing renewable energy development in Colombia must work with Indigenous communities

Between high wind speeds and lots of sunlight, La Guajira — a desert region along Colombia’s Caribbean coast — is considered one of the world’s most promising locations for wind and solar energy projects. Dozens of renewable energy projects are at various stages of development in the region, and at least 40 wind farms are projected to begin operations within the next decade. Currently, only one 10-turbine wind farm is operating.Felipe Gonzalez Penagos, the La Guajira regional manager for Colombi...
New Lines Magazine •

Renewal Is Not the Whole Story of Medellin’s Comuna 13

In the hills overlooking Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city, with roughly 4 million residents and a growing expat community, a sprawling bald patch of dirt called La Escombrera, or “the dump,” glares down toward the city’s valley floor, crowded with skyscrapers and brick apartment buildings. Luis Fernando Álvarez, or El Aka as he is better known, sees it wherever he goes in his home city. The large dirt mound looming over the city also looms over him. “It’s like an open wound,” he told New...
SciLine •

How scientific evidence can improve your immigration reporting

With immigration policy upended this year and the ramifications playing out in communities across the country, journalists face a daunting task in confronting a highly politicized topic on behalf of a polarized and skeptical audience.
Journalists can move beyond that political back-and-forth and more effectively combat misinformation and disinformation about the issue by turning to something one might not immediately consider when talking about immigration: scientific evidenc...
NPR •

Cuts to federal grants affecting even non-profits that don't get them

Three times a week, Armando Guardiola wakes in the bleary morning hours and pulls on his clothes. The retired railroad worker traipses around his yellow ranch-style home in Commerce City, Colorado, making last-minute preparations before a public shuttle arrives. He's heading to an early shift, and he can't be late — his life depends on it. By 7:30 a.m., Guardiola is at a kidney dialysis clinic in Westminster. The 71-year-old spends hours at a time here, in a room where close to 20 strangers...
KFF Health News •

Deportation fears add to mental health problems confronting Colorado resort town workers

SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — When Adolfo Román García-Ramírez walks home in the evening from his shift at a grocery store in this central Colorado mountain town, sometimes he thinks back on his childhood in Nicaragua. Adults, he recollects, would scare the kids with tales of the “Mona Bruja,” or “Monkey Witch.” Step too far into the dark, they told him, and you might just get snatched up by the giant monstrous monkey who lives in the shadows.
Now, when...
Denverite/Colorado Public Radio •

How Latino seniors are beating loneliness in Denver

Three times a week, Armando Guardiola wakes in the bleary morning hours and pulls on his clothes. The retired railroad worker traipses around his yellow ranch-style home in Commerce City making last-minute preparations before a public shuttle arrives.He’s heading to an early shift, and he can’t be late — his life depends on it.By 7:30 a.m., Guardiola is at a kidney dialysis clinic in Westminster. The 71-year-old spends hours at a time here, in a room where close to 20 stranger...
KUNC •

Young musicians give Mexican folk music new life at Denver mariachi conference

On a rainy Friday in Denver, Esmeralda Cuevas-Lara stands in a classroom at Metropolitan State University holding a water bottle to her lips in place of a microphone. As a few other students sit in desks watching, Cuevas-Lara belts out lyrics from the Mexican mariachi ballad “El Herradero.”“Ay, qué linda, qué rechula las fiestas de mi rancho…,” she sings in Spanish.Cuevas-Lara moved to Longmont from Guanajuato, Mexico when she was 15 years old. The song, she said, brings her back there.“This is...
KUNC •

Boulder County’s new higher minimum wage could make a dent, but workers say it’s ‘not enough’

Conor Hall takes pride in his knowledge of food. Each workday, he answers customers’ questions about which cheeses to pair with a particular salami, or what it means for a ham to be “uncured.”Hall is an assistant deli manager at a King Soopers grocery story in Boulder. His shifts vary, sometimes forcing him to be up as early as 3 a.m. while other times he closes out the evening. Hall makes around $23 per hour now, well above the local minimum wage, but it hasn’t always been that way. When he sta...
KUNC •

'Mother of the Colorado Trail' highlighted in new archive

On a sunny Monday in March, Grace Marx unpacks gear from the back of a car at the remote South Platte River trailhead outside of Conifer, Colorado. She’s preparing for a three-day backpacking trip with her husband and two young kids. The trailhead where Marx and her family will embark serves as one of many starting points for the Colorado Trail, a 567-mile high-altitude wilderness path that traverses eight mountain ranges between Denver and Durango.Marx’s family isn’t new to the Colorado Trail....
Cronkite News •

Doulas could be an answer to Arizona’s maternal mortality crisis

TEMPE – Leah Goldmann lounges on a sofa with her legs crisscrossed and a pillow cradled on her lap. She listens as Latisa Ratliff goes over birth plans, prenatal dietary considerations and how to know when it’s time to head to the hospital for labor.
Goldmann is pregnant with a girl, with an expected due date in January. It’s an exciting – and anxious – time for Goldmann, who at 33 years old will become a first-time mom.

But for Ratliff, the work is her bread and butter. As a birth doula, Rat...
Cronkite News •

Young migrants in Tapachula cling to fragmented childhood

TAPACHULA, Mexico – Of the thousands of migrants who pass through Mexican shelters each year, at least 1 in 3 are children.
Children and teenagers are fleeing north in droves, from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala and a host of other countries. Some come with extended families or older siblings. Others travel with friends, but at least half attempt the journey alone, according to UNICEF.
Young migrants live in stark conditions, often sleeping in the open air or next to strangers in crowd...
Grants Pass Daily Courier •

Facing lawsuit, District 7 OKs class display of Black Lives Matter poster

In response to a threatened lawsuit, the Grants Pass School District announced a new policy Wednesday that allows teachers to display a
Black Lives Matter poster in classrooms.
The announcement by Superintendent Kirk Kolb is part of a policy change by the Grants Pass School Board last month. The local teachers
union was involved behind the scenes, as was the Oregon Education Association, the parent union of the Grants Pass Education Association.
The revised "Staff Participation in Political Activities" policy shifts the way in which the district approaches what staff are permitted to
display on classroom walls. The revised policy clarifies how District 7 will determine whether a "civil issue" is controversial and that the
district will take into account "whether speech is consistent with district policy and resolutions."
The policy change and subsequent announcement comes after the local teachers union accused the district of violating free speech rights
and threatened to sue after the district in August told a teacher at Highland Elementary to take an OEA-sponsored Black Lives Matters poster
down from a classroom wall.
Grants Pass Daily Courier •

GP school board to tackle video pushing back on transgender rights

A video posted on Youtube in which a Grants Pass middle school administrator and a teacher push back on transgender student rights will likely be on the agenda of the upcoming Grants
Pass School Board meeting Tuesday.
Whether the video and its ensuing controversy will be discussed publicly in open session or behind closed doors in executive session is not yet clear, according to board member Brian
DeLaGrange, given that the two educators featured in the video have been put on administrative leave while the district conducts what it has described as an investigation.
The video seemingly went viral Tuesday or Wednesday, but school board chairman Scott Nelson said he was first made aware of it two weeks ago during spring break and that a district
investigation began sometime last week.
Grants Pass Daily Courier •

In Grants Pass, not enough housing options to go around

Late last August, Alitash Crockett moved to Merlin from Texas with her toddler son and a small dog.
Crockett, who was born and raised in Texas, said she moved here because a relative in the area offered a place to live while she
readjusted from a tumultuous personal situation.
Still, Crockett had planned to find a rental of her own in or around Grants Pass.
Although she quickly found work as a medical assistant in the community's busy health care industry, sixth months later the 25-
year-old single mother still hasn't found a home of her own.
Grants Pass Daily Courier •

Online learning struggle falls unevenly on families

María Guadalupe Aguirre, a mother of three school-age daughters in the Grants Pass School District, lost her job during the
pandemic. Since then, she has stayed home with her daughters as they continue to take classes online.
The 41-year-old said in Spanish that distance learning has not been easy for her family, especially at the beginning. She said that
at first, her daughters had trouble connecting to the internet at their home, making it hard to attend online classes.
Over time, Aguirre's family adjusted to the new technologies, but she said that there are still times when the internet connection
at home is weak.
Aguirre also said that her two younger daughters, Isabela, 12, and Kendra, 7, don't always understand how to complete their
online assignments. Since she's not personally well-versed on computers, she said she is often unable to help her daughters.
Consequently, some of their assignments never get submitted.