Help us make a difference for East Oakland Here’s what your donation can help us achieve: - $400 - powers additional website functionality to showcase photo winners of our upcoming contest
- $250 - enables completion of Spanish language features on the website
- $150 - provides prizes for our upcoming contest
- $75 - jumpstarts an essay-writing collaboration with a partnering classroom
- $25 - supports ongoing project
No Donation is too small. Make a tax deductible year-end gift today!  DONATE!
About: Our Oakland : Eastside Stories is a multidisciplinary, integrated public art project by artist Rene Yung in collaboration with the people and organizations of East Oakland. The project will include an archive of digital stories for the new East Oakland Community Library, told by East Oakland residents through video, audio, photos, and other digital documentation. Volunteer Opportunity: Our Oakland : Eastside Stories needs a part-time office manager. If you’re interested or know someone that may be, please contact us! Featured Partner Opportunity: If you’re interested in partnering with us, please contact us. Our Thanks:
Our Oakland is made possible by a commission from the City of Oakland’s Public Art Program of the Cultural Arts & Marketing Division. Additional support from: Open Circle Foundation, Independent Arts & Media and individual donors like you. Thanks for your support! We're on Facebook! |
Happy New Year from Our Oakland!
Dear friends,
As the year draws to a close, we want to thank all of our community partners, volunteers, and donors who helped make 2009 a year of accomplishments. Here’re some highlights of the year:
- Our second Community Storytelling Day brought together 22 East Oakland families who shared their stories in 20 videos produced by media partners Youth Uprising, First Voice Media with Media Alliance, and BAYCAT. Thanks everyone who donated for the community and youth media producers stipends! Food justice partner NETA provided fun learning activities for healthy eating, and WorldLink gave a preview screening from their PBS series “Nourish.”
- We completed production of the art glass for the 64-ft clerestory windows in the new East Oakland Community Library, and just got installed! The artwork features the imagery of overlapping ripples that symbolize the Our Oakland vision of community connectedness.
- We completed beta testing the Our Oakland website. Thanks everyone who helped give feedback! We’re currently working on translating core functions into Spanish. Watch for our launch soon!
- We launched our Featured Partners program for the website, to let folks know about the amazing work being done by East Oakland community organizations and the assets available to residents. We warmly welcome our new partners Oakland Leaf/Youth Roots, Rainbow Recreation Center and the East Oakland Youth Development Center, and our returning media partner First Voice Media.
For 2010, we not only look forward to partnering with more organizations, we have exciting plans for an Our Oakland story contest, school essay-writing partnerships, and a celebration to thank you all when the East Oakland Community Library opens in the spring.
Join us in 2010 on our home stretch to realize our goal of building a collection of powerful stories that will inspire, empower, and bring people together to re-imagine possibilities — a different story of East Oakland that is about assets and hopes and dreams as well as challenges.
Malayphet’s Story
Meet Malayphet Insixiengmey, a teacher and proud resident of East Oakland. Malayphet grew up in an immigrant family, and like many people in East Oakland who emigrated from diverse areas, she thrives as a vital member of the community. She teaches her students that they each have the opportunity to succeed because it’s not where you are from, but who you are. Watch Malayphet’s story, produced by media partner Youth Uprising.
During these tough times, stories can enrich our lives and our communities. They teach, inspire and motivate us, and most importantly, reach out to communities to support pride and heritage for generations.
The online story archive is envisioned as a portal for community voices and resources featuring amazing people and organizations in the community working to help build East Oakland into a vital and strong community. Stories like Malayphet’s inspire hope amidst ongoing challenges to the community, and remind us that change is happening everyday in incremental ways. Help us make a difference by telling a different story of East Oakland.
Thank you for your interest, support and generosity.
We wish you warmth, peace, joy and prosperity for the New Year!
Rene Yung, Lead Artist and Project Director
& the Our Oakland : Eastisde Stories Team
www.ouroakland.org
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