Youth Roots in New York - Oakland Leaf

This year the Urban Arts (UA) after school program at Urban Promise Academy (UPA) continues
to provide enriching classes to supplement academic intervention. New classes include:
Sailing (through Oakland Parks and Recreation),
Capoeira Mandinga (Brazilian martial art), Afro
Brazilian/Cuban Dance (Loco Bloco). Our Girlz
Initiative brings new classes focusing on empowering
young confident female youth to become
leaders of their community. The Unity Council
has a new Girls Sports Program, which provides
opportunities for girls to discover their strengths
through teamwork, communication, and leadership.
Girls’ Power is a class that provides a forum
for middle school girls to discuss challenges and
accomplishments they face in our community
and in a changing world. Monthly self- defense
workshops are available for young female students in UA and Urban Arts Cheerleaders to attend
monthly.
Urban Arts
The UPA Parent Center (PC) continues to grow and flourish under the leadership of Parent
Community Organizer Glendy Cordero. Parents attend English and Computer classes
and support UPA community functions. A new parent patrol has been established and
parents like Ana Olivares work hard to keep the students feeling safe and nurtured.
Oakland Peace Camp 2009!
This summer, over 90 youth were
able to develop their skills and
interests through 7 Oakland Peace
Camp (OPC classes: DJ/Music
Production; Girls’ & Boys’ Hop
Dance; Spoken Word Poetry/Creative
Writing; Basketball & Social Change; Graffiti Arts; and Hip
Hop Theater with locally and internationally renowned
artist-instructors.
Additionally, students communed each morning in small
groups called “advisories” led by an adult teacher and
youth intern from our Ramas program. In their advisories, youth explored “The Politics of Space and Place” whereby
youth examined how physical contexts highlight and define social roles within a space. Youth engaged in community
action projects to help bridge the seemingly disparate “spaces” of youth and the elderly, inner-city and suburban youth,
black and Latino neighborhoods, and “places” such as urban and non-urban environments, Spanish speaking and English
speaking communities. Projects included working with the elderly in a retirement home, cleaning up a local park, filming
a documentary video, public performances, and completing a permanent mural for the ASCEND campus entitled
“Love.”
Each day, Anita Miralle of Something for Your Soul Catering, a local chef specializing in cooking with seasonal, locally
grown foods, nourished students at lunch. She introduced them to a variety of healthful
foods from around the world.
Reaffirming the validity and value of urban culture, OPC hosted its 3rd annual Hip Hop Summit,
a 3-day long camp-wide exploration of the issues in and surrounding Hip Hop culture.
The summit conlcuded in a youth-facilitated discussion panel and panelist performances
featuring Ise Lyfe, Rep Life, Rico Pabón, and dancer-educators Susie Lundy and Jacinta Vlach.
OPC culminated in the annual End-of-Camp Exposition of Learning (EXPO). The Oakland
Leaf community -- including students, families, teachers, and artists – came together to celebrate
and showcase the hard work of the youth and their instructors. To open the EXPO, OPC
interns compiled a video presentation previewing their digital video work “Stunnin’ at OPC”
of footage taken during camp. Interns edited still images and video together to carry the hip
hop verse “narration” they wrote, performed, and recorded. Additionally, the EXPO featured
two hours of youth performances from all the performing arts classes to an audience of 150
parents and family members, the CD release of “Take Back the Block,” written and recorded
by the DJ/Music Production class, and the unveiling of the mural “Love” by the Graffiti Arts
class.
Sunset Warriors
As our flagship program, ASCEND Sunset Warriors (ASW) draws from its history of successful programming and new administrative
structures to strengthen this year’s work. The ASW Leadership Team, consisting of Program Director Laila Jenkins-Perez, Assistant
Administrative Director Miladi Almaweri-Borrero, Academic Co-Coordinator & Assistant Program Director Valerie Nicolas, Academic
Co-Coordinator Esmeralda Meza, and Academic Mentor Tiffany Knuckles, met for 4 weeks over the summer at the Mother Garden
planning for the year. The collaborative effort models shared-leadership which is essential to the sustainability of ASW programming.
The depth of preparation by the Leadership Team enables what promises to be a dynamic year for youth. Youth will have trimesters,
rather than semesters, providing them the opportunity to participate in 6 enrichment classes. Also new this year is Wednesday Club,
which includes weekly meetings of the Gardening Club, Hip Hop Dance, OMG (Online Media Group), Boys’ Mentoring, and Skateboarding.
Through a community partnership with the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department and Unity Council, ASW students,
as in UA, will have the opportunity to participate in the sailing and kayaking clubs.
In addition to the new Wednesday Clubs, youth will participate in daily academic mentoring and enrichment classes, including Soccer,
Raza Leadership, Acting Out (theatre), Young Engineers, Just Us Girls mentoring, 3D Arts, Computer Game Design, Baile Folklorico
y Teatro, and Mixed Sports. Enrichment classes feature new staff members: Faouly Fields, Benjamin Garcia, Imelda Herrera,
Bahati Jackson, Christine Jamlig, Raj Kanani, Stephani Candelaria-Waidelich, and Jesse Williams. ASW also welcomes new Academic
Mentor Molly Porzig and Academic Liaisons Geeta Makhija and Corrigan Malloy. Oakland Leaf welcomes all our new staff with our
deepest appreciation for their dedication to the youth and community.
As ASW recognizes the potential in its new staff, it also acknowledges and is grateful for all the returning staff, including the ongoing relationship with Girls, Inc.,
who work to sustain the positive impact on and healthy relationships with youth. This year, all but one Academic Mentor are returning staff members, one in her
third year at ASW and five in their fourth. The ASW Family Resource Center (FRC) also welcomes Guadalupe Barrera, a veteran Kindergarten Creative Play instructor
in ASW, as an FRC Coordinator, and Nai Saeteurn into her expanded role as FRC Program Coordinator.
ASW’s two Academic Co-Coordinators will continue to teach in addition to their increased administrative duties. Their dual role formally exemplifies the spirit of
community leadership in ASW, preventing the detrimental gap between administration and practice, contributing to ASW’s success. OUSD’s latest annual School
Report revealed that students attending ASW scored higher in math and language arts literacy exams, exhibited higher school attendance rates, and demonstrated a
marked drop in suspensions in contrast to those not enrolled in ASW.
Love Cultivating Schoolyards (LCS) started as a community initiative to empower and unite individuals through developing a fundamental
relationship with the earth and food production. Rooted in the devoted work of LCS Coordinator Matthew Linzner and his LCS Ramas Interns,
LCS has grown immensely in the last year. Last fall, LCS started biweekly produce stands at ASCEND, selling plants, cut produce, herbs and other
LCS products to ASW families and the school community. As of the writing of this article, LCS has already hosted four produce stands. Parents
have embraced the events, requesting specific produce and inquiring about future stands. Their input demonstrates community ownership of the
program and is vital to its continued authentic growth and efficacy.
LCS is also working to reinforce these integral relationships with the ASCEND community of families, bridging their efforts with that of the
ASCEND FRC by contributing produce like onions, basil, tomatoes and lettuce to the FRC nutrition class. The exchange cuts costs that FRC staff
and participants previously absorbed, leveraging internal resources to support program work in challenging economic times.
In August, Matthew Linzner presented during the ASCEND School professional development series for daytime teachers, introducing LCS to
the staff and administration in a formal forum absent in previous years. His presentation included information about the program, how to raise
garden awareness, and opportunities for teachers to integrate time in the ASCEND gardens into their classroom curriculum. Through the recent
establishment of the LCS Team at Oakland Leaf, LCS will continue to develop a formalized curriculum for educators within the program as well
as through reaching out to other urban ecology educators. This winter, more experienced interns will collaborate with Heather Taylor of the
Duck’s Nest Preschool in Berkeley to contribute to teachoutside.org, a garden education curriculum library.
The LCS Team has also instituted a new intern structure that empowers
and entrusts more experienced interns with formalized leadership roles.
Two third year interns, Genesis Rodriguez and Julio Cervantes, lead various
components of the program independent of the LCS Coordinator while Luis
Bahena continues to develop his urban ecology skills, helping two first year
interns, Jose Luis Rodriguez and Ricardo Martinez, learn the basics of gardening
and hard work. The new intern structure supports individual growth and
opportunities for independence and leadership.
Over the summer, LCS built a 150-foot redwood protective fence at ASCEND.
They worked with a core group of parents and community members to
complete the fence—from cutting and treating the wood to hammering in
the finishing nails. The fence stands as testament to the practical and purely
aesthetic beauty that LCS contributes to the community.