Two EHRP-supported projects were recently named by Solutions Journalism Network staff as some of their favorite solutions stories of 2021. Here’s what they said about those stories:

Be Your Own Boss: More Co-op Businesses Are Returning Workers’ Power* Mother Jones and Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Alissa Quart

EHRP works with journalists who have experienced economic hardship. This project included six freelance photographers, whose work emphasizes the dignity and aspirations of the people in their images. The story itself offers a powerful angle on workers that is different from what we see in most stories about “the great resignation.”

‘This Isn’t a Dying Coal Town,’ It’s a West Virginia Community Rethinking Health Care and Succeeding 100 Days in Appalachia, Taylor Sisk

This story explores the ongoing closures of rural hospitals in the U.S. by investigating an effective community hospital in West Virginia, its positive impacts on the community, its closure and the process of bringing it back. That it does all this without sugar-coating the problem or minimizing the work needed makes it even more effective.