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51% #1627: Women Cope With Their Dance Group On Hold

Hadley Park line dancers, TN
Courtesy of David Condos
Hadley Park line dancers, TN

On this week’s 51%, COVID has changed so much in our lives. Community dance is off the table, and a group of senior citizens is learning to get by without it, for now. Plus, hear about the first woman composer to have music published.

About four months ago, we brought you a story about a woman who had co-founded a community dance class that helps senior citizens fight inactivity and isolation. The group dancing was put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking away a social outlet so vital for many. The community class was still on hold at the time of this airing. Joann Jones is the co-founder of the free line-dancing class for senior citizens in Nashville, Tennessee's Hadley Park neighborhood. WPLN producer David Condos brings us an update to his earlier story.

David Condos originally produced this story for the podcast Neighbors. His previous story on 51% was in show #1609. 

New data from UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme shows COVID-19 will widen the poverty gap between women and men. The pandemic will push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line, reversing decades of progress to eradicate extreme poverty. The poverty rate for women was expected to decrease by 2.7 percent between 2019 and 2021, but projections now point to an increase of 9.1 percent due to the pandemic and its fallout. By 2021, for every 100 men aged 25 to 34 living in extreme poverty (living on 1.90 USD a day or less), there will be 118 women, a gap that is expected to increase to 121 women per 100 men by 2030.

Meantime, the COVID-19 pandemic has left some military families in limbo. This spring, the Pentagon issued a "stop movement" order, prohibiting service members from transferring to new bases. Now, months later, some moves are taking place, but other troops - and their families - remain frozen in place. From San Diego, Steve Walsh reports for the American Homefront Project.  

This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans. Funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

That’s our show for this week. Thanks to Tina Renick for production assistance. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Chartock. Our theme music is Glow in the Dark by Kevin Bartlett. This show is a national production of Northeast Public Radio. If you’d like to hear this show again, sign up for our podcast, or visit the 51% archives on our web site at wamc.org. And follow us on Twitter @51PercentRadio

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