Happy Hump Day, Shit Givers.
What if we just…helped each other? This week is about the infrastructure of community: the shared tools, shared knowledge, and shared responsibility that make this all work. Whether that’s lending your neighbor a power drill, making sure kids can read, or trusting science.
Community starts here.
Let’s go.
— Willow
Arm yourself (with data, and also a vaccine)
We touched on this last week, but I’m going to keep harping on it because it’s so fundamental to a functioning, healthy society and we have some new related action steps to share.
Public health infrastructure has been hollowed out, leaving us vulnerable to outbreaks. It’s not nearly enough, but there are some organizations stepping up to fill in the gaps.
Arm yourself, your family, and your community with solid data on vaccines and infectious disease outbreaks:
Get comprehensive public health data to understand the health of your community using PopHIVE (go)
The Vaccine Integrity Project has the latest evidence-based vaccine information, so you can decipher between misinformation and real data (go)
15 states have joined the Governors Public Health Alliance to help fills the gaps left by gutted federal infrastructure. Get your state to join up next (go)
Impact Counter is tracking the ongoing consequences of slashing public health funding at home and abroad (go)
Use BEACON to stay updated and track infectious disease outbreaks as they happen around the globe (go)
Borrow more, buy less
There are few things I love more than a library. And libraries can be for so much more than books! When I was renting in Vancouver, and had zero storage or extra cash to spend on power tools, I used the Tool Library all the time for special projects and it was the very best.
And even if you have the space and the means…does everyone on your block really need their own personal snow blower? Probably not! If humans are defined by our use of tools, then community is defined by sharing them.
Here are a few cities with tool libraries you can check out:
👉 Find a lending library in your city here. If your city has one and we haven’t included it yet, reply to this email and we’ll review it. If your city doesn’t have one, consider starting one!
Speaking of libraries
RuPaul says reading is fundamental and that’s 100% true, especially when it comes to things like democracy. Here are just a few organizations doing the work to improve literacy, access to education, and access to information, all over the world:
CODE’s programs support global literacy and teacher training (go)
Help children from low-income countries thrive by developing their literacy skills with Room to Read (go)
Public media provides core educational and community programming for those who need it at any age. Adopt a station facing funding cuts near you (go)
The National Education Association speaks up for better education policy, social justice, worker’s rights, and safety in schools (go)
The National Center for Science Education makes sure students are taught accurate science and that teachers have the tools to combat misinformation (go)
👉 Find more resources to support education all over the world here.
And another thing!
I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out maternal health during Women’s History Month. Of course, women are so much more than moms or potential moms, but it would be great if when women do choose to become moms (choose being the operative word here), they weren’t putting their lives at risk quite so much.
Here are some ways you can support better maternal health outcomes across the board:
mothers2mothers offers peer-led support for HIV-positive mothers, and reduces mother-to-child transmission (go)
Use Doula Match if you are a family looking for a doula, a doula looking to support a family, or are interested in training to become a doula (go)
Every Mother Counts helps ensure safe, equitable maternity care for every mother, regardless of geography (go)
Birth In Color is fixing the mostly preventable maternal mortality rates in the US, especially for Black women (go)
Poppy Seed Health addresses a huge gap in American maternal health care by providing on-demand access to trained doulas, midwives, and nurses (go)
Okay, that’s it for this week. Call your mom, vaccinate your kids, read a book, and share a tool with your neighbor!
Thank you — as always — for giving a shit.
— Willow
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