In 2008, Caheri Gutierrez, a young model from one of Oakland’s most dangerous neighborhoods, was shot in her beautiful face and nearly killed in a drive-by. With the help of Youth ALIVE! Intervention Specialist Tammy Cloud, Caheri was able to make the journey from troubled youth to traumatized victim to community leader and is now inspiring young people in Oakland every day to make better choices.
Teens on Target, Youth Alive!’s peer education program, is training teens to be community leaders and educators and is successfully helping young people find positive alternatives to violence.
TNT Results
Almost 100% of TNT Peer Educators graduate from high schools that have graduation rates of only 40%.
80-90% tell us they resolved a conflict that once would have ended in a fight.
Twice as many TNT Peer Educators said they were “very likely to look for alternatives to violent situations” after participating in the program.
Two-thirds fewer students believe it is ever okay to hit a girlfriend or boyfriend.
90% fewer students believed having a gun made them safer.
Read more about the life-changing work we’re doing with Teens on Target.
Youth ALIVE!’s Caught in the Crossfire client Jean Eason, Intervention Specialist Ray Estrada and Executive Director, Anne Marks were featured on NBC News. The story aired March 4, 2014.
Oakland Effect: the profound physical effect of toxic stress
Posted April 14, 2012
Oakland Tribune
By Scott Johnson Oakland Tribune
This is an excerpt from reporter Scott Johnson’s blog, which focuses on the impact of violence and trauma on the community. Go to www.oaklandeffect.com for updates on his reporting.
Shootings Soar in Oakland; Children Often the Victims
Posted January 15, 2012
NEW YORK TIMES
By SHOSHANA WALTER JAN. 7, 2012
Five-year-old Gabriel Martinez Jr. died Dec. 30, shot as he played under a streetlight near his father’s taco truck on an East Oakland street corner. He was the third young child killed in Oakland since August, the 110th homicide of 2011, and the 199th juvenile shooting victim of more than 2,000 people who were victims of gun violence in an especially bloody year in an increasingly violent city.
Gunshots cracked the air on a sunny morning as two men led a group of high school teachers on a tour of a violent area of West Oakland. As the teachers fled to safety, the local guides hurried to the chaotic scene on the nearby corner of 13th and Peralta Streets.
Over 22 years ago, Deane Calhoun sat in a meeting that would forever change her life and the lives of thousands of Oakland teens. In 1989, Calhoun, then a public health worker, listened in horror as Bruce Kennedy, a teacher at what was once known as Castlemont High School in East Oakland, told her and a group of other school district and city council officials that students had been caught playing Russian roulette in the locker room. In another instance, Kennedy said, a kid pulled out a gun on the school bus.
Marianne Williams, a Teens on Target Youth Leader, wrote this poem for Youth ALIVE! She performed it at Youth ALIVE!’s 20th Anniversary Celebration on November 10, 2011.
Occupy movement turns to extending appeal to broad segments of U.S. population
Posted November 2, 2011
Oakland Tribune
By Scott Johnson Oakland Tribune
November 2, 2011
OAKLAND – Daniel Wilkerson has a hard time relating to most of what he hears coming from the protesters at Occupy Oakland. He has no use for communism, and he thinks capitalism works perfectly well when done right.
