raw effect studio blog

Yoga Changes Kids’ Lives for the Better

When Jennifer Vizina brings pre-kindergarten and primary school children into her yoga classes she’s not just teaching the basics of yoga. According to Vizina and researchers, yoga offers children an improvement in various health metrics, behavioral markers, emotional situations and medical conditions. As a result, according to L. Black at the National Center for Health […]

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Investment of Time and Energy Key to Equity in Climate Crisis Solutions, Say WHOI Panelists

According to panelists at the Crafting Equitable Solutions to the Climate Crisis event, presented by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), investment is key to a sustainable future. They suggested investing time and energy into riskier solutions, working with indigenous groups, making direct contact with local leaders, and assessing if solutions are equitable. The event took place virtually over Zoom and at WHOI on July 19, 2022.

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Supreme Court reduces EPA’s power, but West Virginia climate activists say the fight’s not over

The Supreme Court ruling only covered a certain power exercised by the EPA. That power is called generation shifting, which requires power companies to gradually shift to cleaner forms of energy, like wind and solar, and abandon coal through regulating caps on emissions. However, this opens up the potential for further litigation of the EPA’s powers under the same reasoning.

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Pulitzer Center Report Reveals the Struggles of the “Remain in Mexico” Immigration Program at Roosevelt House Event

“They’re living outside, they’re living in camps, they’re living in tight quarters, not very sanitary conditions,” said Brigida during her talk, “Beyond Borders,” which was sponsored by the Pulitzer Center and held at the Roosevelt House in March.

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Meetup Brings People Together

It’s a sunny afternoon in Long Beach, NY. A small group of Meetup goers are gathered together, walking through the farmer’s market and street fair. I’m the only one dressed in a Halloween costume. Several of these Meetup members have stories to tell about how Meetup saved their lives.  Meetup is an online platform where […]

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Shards of History

When the war was over, she pulled up the floorboard, dug the vase back up, and showed it to her husband and children. They knew it had been in the family for six generations. The painted porcelain was done by Jean-Jacques Bachelier. It had survived through the War of the First Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, the Hundred Days between France and the Netherlands, and now the Great War. Its beauty still in tact.

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A Day In The Life

… Her room was filled with all the things I would want in my own, if I had a room. It took all the breath I had left for the day to walk up the six flights to Lela’s apartment. Situated a few blocks from the yellow beach, her windowsills were speckled in shells, incense and statues of animals. On one wall hung a tapestry with a mandala. On another wall hung a giant floral anatomy poster, complete with a magnetic wooden frame that mimicked schoolhouse pull-down charts. Her bed had the soft, cooling linen that one only finds in a room like hers— creamy in every sense of the word: texture, color, and scent. Each item in her room was perfectly spaced out from the others, like a well-designed landscape. I felt entirely out of place there, wearing my ripped jeans, faded t-shirt and boots that were starting to come apart at the seams. My hiking pack was covered in dirt. My hair was a little messy, and mousy brown, and my skin was excessively tan, from being outside all the time.

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Reflective Winds

The winds rushed in every direction. The flickers of light through the grave curtain of grey were few and far between, glaring out from the lighthouse a mile down the beach. Edgar’s arms were crossed at his chest like a mummy, and he stood in the sand, tied to a tree, expecting the worst. His thin black pin-stripe suit barely retained any heat, so he shivered in the cold of this stormy morning. His white shirt was crumpled and dirty from sleeping in the sand the night before. He looked ragged—a splayed version of his usual self. His black tie hung halfway out of his pants pocket—he had the intelligence to at least remove it from his neck so it wouldn’t flap him in the face.

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New-Fangled Technology

My mother uses her phone for research. Instead of bookmarks, she saves links to webpages on her home screen. I remind her that they can’t be transferred to a new phone, and she could lose them.
My grandmother learns how to turn on her phone. She follows her directions for sending a text message. She accidentally sends a ten minute video of her feet with the news playing in the background.
…

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