TNT kicked off the new school year by doing what it does best – making connections. Recruitment started in early September for both our Fremont and Castlemont high school sites and consisted of tabling, pizza parties, lunchtime enlistments, and classroom visits to spread the word. Initial turnout for the program exceeded all expectations – interviews numbered in the high double digits and we are seeing more than fifty students regularly attend our afterschool sessions.
Youth ALIVE!’s Ricardo Garcia-Acosta was a guest on KALW’s Your Call with Rose Aguilar recently, for a panel discussion of community-based efforts to increase safety and prevent violence. Ricardo joined Rose and James Favel, founder of Bear Clan Patrol, a Winnipeg-based group that supports people in need and helps then find missing loved ones. Ricardo had some fantastic things to say about the needs of our clients in a time of change for Oakland. “Jobs save lives. Jobs stop bullets. Folks feel like they have to hustle because they don’t fit into this city that’s changing. We need to find ways to get them the skills they need to tap into the growth of the city.” He also spoke to the need for everyone to contribute, to “step outside your comfort zone and do something.” Listen to the whole fascinating conversation here.
The report we release today, Listening to Our Youth: From Parkland to Oakland, lists results from all of our programs. It includes two very frank and very honest stories from two of the young people we work with, stories that perfectly express the resilience and hope that sustain them against the terrible barriers of violence and inequality they face every day.
There’s more than one way to change the world. The East Oakland students who started our Teens on Target youth leadership program back in 1989 sought to create a safer community through two approaches: education and advocacy. Today, TNT youth leaders continue to influence the policymakers and community leaders on issues like gun violence and police-community relations. Youth ALIVE! has an advocacy arm that works to design and pass legislation to increase safety and equality an d to promote healing. We also work with our partners in the National Network of Hospital-based Violence Intervention Programs to fight for justice and safety. This month, Governor Brown signed into law a bill we had worked throughout the year to pass, AB 1639 (E. Garcia) Victim Compensation Fund Expansion. Until now, any victim of a violent crime accused or suspected of being affiliated with a gang was ineligible for victim compensation. These funds are absolutely crucial to victims in a time of great emotional and economic stress. To deny them without due process was to perpetuate the pain and interrupt the healing each person deserves. It is this healing that we and many others believe can prevent future violence. We thank Fathers & Families of San Joaquin, the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, Policylink, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice and others for their leadership on this issue. We’ll continue to work in upcoming legislative sessions to pass bills on police transparency. One bill seeks more openness when police forces acquire military equipment. Another seeks the release of records of officers and prison guards being investigated for abuse. Read about the legislation on our radar.
On June 21st, Meet Oakland's Youth Activists for Gun Safety
Posted May 23, 2018
Electric Times for Young Activists
TNT youth leaders and Castlemont sophomores Rodney Robinson and Terri’Nae Williams
These are electric times for the young violence prevention activists like those in our Teens on Target (TNT) leadership program. Since the tragedy at Parkland, and now our latest sorrow in Texas, there is a new national receptiveness to the voices of youth affected by violence. There’s a new eagerness to listen. TNT, housed at East Oakland high schools Castlemont and Fremont, both of which are located at the nexus of Oakland’s decades-long struggle with violence, is the very embodiment of what our community and nation are looking for: resilient, energetic young people of color, informed by hard experience, whose innate abilities to create change are being nurtured and facilitated. Recently, Youth ALIVE!’s talented board member Caitlin Lang spent time capturing some terrific images of our 2018 youth leaders. See some of Caitlin’s wonderful images here. And then join TNT youth leaders from East Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaff, State Senator Nancy Skinner, Youth ALIVE! staff and many other friends and supporters of our work on Thursday, June 21, at our Celebration Dinner & Silent Auction at Blind Tiger Restaurant in Uptown Oakland. We’ll be honoring our long-time partners, Castlemont High School.
TNT youth leaders rally with Assemblyman Jones-Sawyer in Sacramento.
Last Thursday in Sacramento Youth ALIVE! and Teens on Target youth leaders stood up and said “Enough is enough” and reminded the world that while mass shootings are extremely tragic and must be stopped, it has always been communities of color who suffer the most from gun-related violence. And these communities are where change will come from, if the world will listen. A day of briefings and rallies was organized by State Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-LA), joined by Women’s March Sacramento and folks from the Brady Campaign for Gun Violence.
Former TNT Youth Leader Smooth Wickliff in The Guardian
Posted May 2, 2018
Smooth on Giving up the Gun
On the eve of last month’s March for our Lives, the Guardian sought commentary from current and former Teens on Target youth leaders, including former TNTer Smooth Wickliff. With insight and clarity, Smooth wrote about growing up surrounded by violence in Oakland, about the lure of the gun, and about what TNT taught him about breaking the cycle of violence. Read his Guardian piece, which the publication called “I used to be a gun-toting teenager. If I stepped away from guns, we all can.”
TNT youth leader Dymond Garrett has written a searing but hopeful piece for Youth Radio about the #NeverAgain movement, growing up around violence, and the frustration felt by those who have been talking about – and living with – gun violence for years.
