This year’s Heal The Streets cohort continues to put solutions for violence in the hands of the young people in Oakland. Each year the fellows conduct a Participatory Action Research project.
Heal the Streets
Invest in youth leadership.
When youth have the knowledge, inspiration, and solutions they need to address the challenges they face, they can make a difference.
Heal the Streets trains Oakland youth to become community leaders and peace advocates.
Our third cohort is using Forum Theater to explore root causes and solutions to violence and bullying. By engaging youth across the community in theater workshops, we are finding creative ways to address violence in our lives and our neighborhoods. Our research will culminate in a youth-led action at the end of our fellowship. Learn More.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
This poem was written by Heal the Streets Fellow Nubia in honor of Black History Month.
They lock us up in cagesBehind bars. With no cards.Our decks is emptyStill our struggles are hard.
It's not fair that our opportunities are limited.Yet the circumstances holding us back are limitless.
One of the most rewarding aspects of my work at the Ella Baker Center is supporting our different programs and campaigns.
As a young woman of color, I find it hard to stay focused in Oakland. Every night while I do my homework, I hear the rattling of gunshots bouncing off the cement sidewalks. I hear people yelling and crying after getting a call from the hospital, telling them a loved one has died from a gunshot wound. On my way to school last year, I saw a dead body lying in the middle of the street, right in front of an elementary school.
Our Heal the Streets program includes an opportunity for Fellows to be placed with mentors. I had the chance to mentor 17 year old, Met West Senior, Dion Campbell. Want to know about how the police tried to stop her racial profiling project? What her best friend thinks of the program and where she's getting $20,000 for college? Read on.
I am appalled by what the Division of Juvenile Justice is doing to the youth that are there. I feel like they should have better treatment towards the youth -- youth shouldn’t be treated like animals but as human beings.
It’s been a violent year in Oakland so far – both homicides and shootings are up about a third over last year’s numbers. And, throughout the year, various editorials have called for different solutions to the uptick in violence.
When I first walked through the doors of Ella Baker Center for the Heal the Streets fellowship, I was so excited because I knew I was about to do something to make a difference. At first, I thought that we'd be on the streets protesting and going to rallies. But what we actually did was much more important.
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Together, we speak out for justice, build a green economy, empower voters, build community and invest in young leaders.
Thanks for 15 years of people-powered change, will you help power the next 15?
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