The last few weeks have been tough, and the news cycle seems to get more and more negative each day. What’s happening with migrant children? What about Kavanaugh and the future of the Supreme Court? Did you hear about yesterday’s police shooting? What did Trump say now? What are the Russians up to?

It’s an exhausting and all too familiar cycle, and we would like to break that cycle this week by bringing you a roundup of good news. We want to share with you the stories of people who are doing what they can in their spheres of influence to make the world a better place.

  • Former Apple employee Dan Defosse opened a barbeque restaurant in Mexico City, and it has become known as a place that hires recently deported Mexicans who need a place to feel safe and welcome. The company provides workers with higher wages, more vacation, and additional benefits they wouldn’t normally get in the service industry in Mexico and provides additional support as they deal with the transition of living between two worlds: the country they left that doesn’t recognize them and the country that kicked them out that doesn’t appreciate them. “They feel comfortable here because we have different rules,” Defossey said. “We do it because it’s something that we want to do. We built a home for them, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”
  • A white woman in a grocery store stepped up as an ally when another white woman was yelling at two Latina women because they were speaking Spanish. She intervened, calling her behavior unacceptable and forcing the woman out of the aisle.

  • Eric Reid showed up to his introductory press conference with the t-shirt reading #ImWithKap to show his continued support for the movement Colin Kaepernick started, and for which he is still being punished by the NFL owners who refuse to hire him. When asked about it, he said, “Nothing will change if we don’t talk about it.”
  • Last week, two women bravely stopped an elevator carrying Republican Senator Jeff Flake to ask him to consider what a vote for Brett Kavanaugh would say to survivors of sexual assault. One of the women, Ana Maria Archila, said that in the interaction, she and the senator were able to establish a human connection: “I connected to him because he’s a father, I am a mother. This is not just about us today, not just about the politics of this moment; this is about the lives of the people we love so much.”
  • Black women throughout the South are working tirelessly for Black turnout in the upcoming elections, fighting voter suppression and feelings of futility and frustration. “When you invest in a black woman, she brings her house, her block, her church and her story,” said Glynda C. Carr, co-founder of Higher Heights, one of the organizations built to foster black women’s political leadership.
  • A father is calling for changing tables in men’s restrooms and advocating for more recognition of the importance of fatherhood. Dante Palmer’s image of himself squatting to change his son’s diaper without a changing table went viral and thousands of fathers are sharing their own images, using the hashtag #SquatforChange

We all need encouragement sometimes, so we hope you find encouragement in these stories to continue the fight for inclusion, even when things get heavy. Consider what you can do, big or small, to make the world a more inclusive place, and make a commitment to #LiveInclusively.