Archive

This is Anderson Peraza, a 10-year-old student at East Baltimore’s Hampstead Hill Academy. On March 9, Anderson’s dad Jesus Peraza dropped him off at school like he did every day. On his way back home, Jesus was stopped by Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE) agents to be deported to Honduras, a country he fled ten years […]

This morning OSI-Baltimore joined other local community groups, organizers, and students at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (Poly) to launch Hidden Voices: Illuminating Baltimore’s Secrets, an innovative project based on artist Frank Warren’s PostSecret series that will encourage people to share their secrets on anonymous postcards. Pat Bernstein, a local philanthropists who recently wrote a powerful op-ed in […]

This week, CityBizList ran a three-part interview with OSI-Baltimore’s director, Diana Morris. In the series, Morris spoke to Veronica Cool, CEO of Cool and Associates, LLC and OSI-Baltimore advisory board member about her career beginnings as a legal advisor in the Refugee Bureau of the State Department as well as leading Open Society Foundations’ first […]

This week, National Public Radio’s Code Switch featured a story on Safe City Baltimore, the immigrant education and defense fund established by OSI-Baltimore in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs (MIMA). OSI-Baltimore director Diana Morris and MIMA director Catalina Rodriguez-Lima, who is also a member of OSI’s Leadership Council, were interviewed about the importance of […]

Last night, in collaboration with the New Day Campaign, OSI-Baltimore sponsored a discussion on safe injection facilities (SIFs) as a public health strategy. Sarah Evans (above, second from left), a senior program manager with the Open Society Foundation’s Public Health Program, talked about her experiences as the coordinator of Vancouver’s Insite, North America’s first and […]

This Saturday, 2013 OSI Community Fellow, Lanaea Featherstone’s William & Lanaea C. Featherstone Foundation and the Consular Section of the Mexican Embassy will present a free financial empowerment conference at the University of Baltimore. “Mi Dinero, Mi Destino” is designed to provide the Latino community with practical skills to help shape personal financial decisions including […]

This week, in the spirit of Bike to Work Day on May 19, On the Record with Sheilah Kast featured two biking projects started by OSI-Baltimore Community Fellows. First, she spoke to Liz Cornish, executive director of Bikemore, which was founded by 2012 Fellow, Chris Merriam, about the bikeability of Baltimore and what challenges cycling […]

FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, an organization co-founded by 2015 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow and current leadership council member, Hannah Brancato, will host two upcoming events as part of a series to bring attention to the criminalization of black women and transgender/gender non-conforming (TGNC) folks who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence. Saida Agostini, Chief Operation Officer […]

About 2,000 people in Maryland died of drug overdoses last year and the governor has declared a “State of Emergency.” In the coming weeks, OSI-Baltimore will host two important discussions about how to reduce the public health impact of this crisis, particularly on communities of color. Next Thursday, May 18th, OSI and the New Day […]