• Could overdose prevention sites be in Maryland’s future?

    Wednesday, February 15, 2023
    Advocates for overdose prevention sites say their yearslong effort to provide places in Maryland where people can more safely consume illegal drugs finally may be gaining traction. Also known as supervised injection sites, the facilities offer clean needles and other supplies to people who use drugs. Trained staff can intervene in opioid overdoses and connect people to treatment [...]
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  • West Baltimore garage featured in Jim Crow-era ‘Green Book’ envisioned as food hall, coworking space

    Monday, January 23, 2023
    -This piece features OSI Fellow Shelley Halstead- By Maya Lora and Lia Russell As Shelley Halstead gazes upon the vacant, disheveled building that once hosted a stop in the “Green Book,” all she sees is potential. “They just want to keep scraping houses and buildings. And I just, I’m a carpenter. Like first and foremost, I’m like, ‘No, [...]
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  • Out for Justice: how one Baltimore organization is making change for returning residents

    Sunday, January 15, 2023
    -Out for Justice is a longtime grantee of the Open Society Institute-Baltimore- By Catherine Pugh, Special to the AFRO As we focus on the change makers and thought leaders continuing the work of Martin Luther King Jr., the AFRO would like to salute the work of Nicole Hanson-Mundell, the executive director of Out for Justice. [...]
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  • Youth program expands to meet demand for youth engagement across Baltimore

    Friday, January 06, 2023
    Wednesday’s deadly violence involving youth underscores the importance of providing a safe space for our kids here in Baltimore. Many of us have been introduced to "Uncle T" before, but now the youth advocate is putting his program on steroids to meet the demand to save our students. Terry ‘Uncle T’ Williams is not new [...]
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  • Van Brooks, Ravens “Inspire Change Award” winner surprised with Super Bowl tickets

    Thursday, January 05, 2023

    Van Brooks was a 2014 OSI-Baltimore Fellow 

    Van Brooks, Ravens “Inspire Change Award” winner surprised with Super Bowl tickets. Watch the video to see the moment.

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  • In Baltimore, Healing Trauma Is Now Official Policy

    Tuesday, December 13, 2022
    In the year since Donna Bruce started working at the Baltimore public library’s Penn North branch, she has connected more than 400 visitors to housing programs, food assistance and substance abuse recovery options — and saved a man from dying of a drug overdose by administering the emergency treatment Narcan. Poverty is pervasive in the [...]
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  • How Baltimore’s MOMCares is working to close the gaps in Black parental health

    Monday, December 12, 2022
    -Ana Rodney is a 2019 OSI Baltimore Community Fellow.- While pregnant with her firstborn, Ana Rodney looked forward to a nine-month journey that culminated with a joyous return home from the hospital with her baby. Then reality hit, and Rodney found herself suffering alone. ...From the pain, Rodney created MOMCares, an organization that provides doula [...]
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  • Mindfulness program empowering students expands beyond Baltimore

    Monday, December 12, 2022
    -Holistic Life Foundation is an OSI-supported program.- A program aims to empower Baltimore students by teaching the techniques of “yoga, meditation, breathwork and self-love.” The nonprofit Holistic Life Foundation, which runs the classes, partnered with university researchers to study the impact on kids’ well-being. A student-turned-educator tells NBC News’ Rehema Ellis that the program changed [...]
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  • Brief But Spectacular – Troy Staton

    Thursday, November 03, 2022
    -Troy Staton 2020 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow.- Troy Staton is a Baltimore barber and founder of “More Than a Shop," a network of barbershops and beauty salons that organizes a host of community services from free Wi-Fi to overdose prevention training. A victim of gun violence, he shares his Brief But Spectacular take on how transforming [...]
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  • At concert outside Baltimore plant, musicians protest Maryland pharmaceutical company’s Narcan prices

    Friday, October 28, 2022
    -OSI grantees Baltimore Harm Reduction Coalition and Maryland Peer Advisory Council were among the groups leading this event.- By Cassidy Jensen Joined by harm-reduction advocates, local musicians performed outside a Baltimore drug manufacturing facility Wednesday afternoon to protest the price of the overdose-reversing drug Narcan sold by pharmaceutical company Emergent BioSolutions. Demonstrators parked a flatbed [...]
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