Archive

Congratulations to 2010 OSI Community Fellow Meshelle Foreman Shields, who was recently named a finalist for a Baker Artist Award for Performance. Forman Shields, who performs under the moniker “Meshelle, The Indie Mom of Comedy” developed Goaldiggers The Sankofa Project to connect young women in Baltimore of African descent to their ancestry, and to build leadership […]

On February 21, OSI grantee, Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition will join Nurses for Justice Baltimore to present Safer Consumption Spaces, a panel discussion at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse. The panel will discuss how this harm reduction approach to drug use can save lives. Participants will hear from advocates in Baltimore who are working to bring […]

This week, OSI grantee, Dr. Susan Sherman, a professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, spoke with WYPR’s Sheilah Kast about her research into fentanyl testing. Listen to the full podcast here. The synthetic opioid fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than […]

CONTACT: Evan Serpick, Open Society Institute-Baltimore evan.serpick@opensocietyfoundations.org; 410-234-1091 BALTIMORE—Today, Open Society Institute-Baltimore releases a new report, “Young, Gifted, and Underfunded: Strengthening the Relationship Between Philanthropy and Youth-Led Movements,” as part of a multi-step effort to build and strengthen connections between local funders and youth-led organizations that drive essential change in our region. Based on focus […]

Join OSI and the Enoch Pratt Free Library on March 8th for a talk with Peter Edelman and Lester Spence at the Church of the Redeemer. Edelman, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy and the faculty director of the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center will be discussing his book, […]

The February issue of Baltimore magazine, which went online today, profiles 30 Baltimore “Visionaries,” described as “change-makers who are shaping the future of our city.” Among the 30 are two OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows: 2017 Fellow Shantell Roberts, founder of Touching Young Lives, Inc., and 2015 Fellow Gianna Rodriguez, founder of Baltimore Youth Arts. Among the other […]

This Wednesday, Feb.7th, OSI-Baltimore will join Charm City Tribe for a special event as part of its “Beit Midrash” (house of study) learning series, on “Opiates in our Communities,” a discussion of how the opioid crisis affects the Jewish community and Baltimore communities overall. Michael Walter, a program specialist in OSI’s Addiction and Health Equity program […]

This week, NPR’s Marketplace interviewed OSI Advisory Board Vice Chair Joe Jones about the Black unemployment rate. Jones, who is the founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families, an organization focusing on jobs and leadership training for urban communities, spoke of the barriers formerly incarcerated people face while looking for employment. “When we think […]

Recently, the Jewish Times featured 2009 OSI Community Fellow Ras Tre Subira and Olam Ubuntu, the youth group for Jewish and African-American teens, which he co-founded with Gabe Pickus. Olam Ubuntu, which combines the Hebrew word for world, “Olam,” and the Nguni-Bantu word, “Ubuntu,” which means “I am because we are,” works with Beth Am Synagogue […]

Last Tuesday, OSI and City Schools held a reception to officially launch the rollout of CEO Sonja Santelises’ “Blueprint for Success.” As part of the blueprint, 55 schools were designated “intensive learning sites,” including 15 where OSI will help implement restorative practices (see Fox 45 coverage). Over the next five years, OSI and city schools […]