Business
On Tuesday afternoon, Mary Boergers, a member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW)’s Oakland-Piedmont Branch, handed out candy bars to passersby at the Rockridge BART station and cried, “Equal pay for women! Would you like a candy bar?” Many people didn’t take the candy bars, shaking their heads—while some took them and said, “Thank you!” “This is just a great way to let people know, remind them that women aren’t making money as much as men,” said Boergers….
Coco Coalition is a social enterprise dedicated helping women of the African diaspora to connect, grow and thrive. The enterprise’s mission is to create safe and empowering opportunities for women, while also addressing health and educational barriers faced by teen girls.
A number of community groups spoke at Tuesday’s Oakland City Council meeting in support of a resolution calling on the federal government to extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to immigrants, and to create a path to permanent residency for those protected by the program that was recently eliminated by the Trump administration. TPS provides temporary residency to immigrants from countries affected by war or natural disasters. Oakland community members spoke largely in favor of residency protections for Haitian and El…
Several Oakland organizations are uniting to bring economic growth to the city by opening a community advocacy and training center in a renovated building on International Boulevard, in the center of the Fruitvale community. Restore Oakland will provide community members with job preparation programs and offer services like a tenants’ rights clinic and a restaurant that will also be a work training site.
On Tuesday evening, about 120 people gathered at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center to attend a “neighborhood design session” held by the city. The session was a public meeting to discuss challenges in Oakland’s Chinatown and to generate ideas for the city’s “Downtown Oakland Specific Plan,” which will lay out a long-term vision for the area. “There are three big ideas that we are working with as part of this plan,” said Gregory Hodge, a social change entrepreneur at Khepera…
2017 brought a new group of student reporters to Oakland North from across the country and the globe. They covered a city in flux: a housing and homelessness crisis that shows no sign of abating, a school district facing millions in budget cuts, a citywide crackdown on warehouse spaces in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire, and local reactions to the new immigration and sanctuary city polices coming out of Washington under the new Donald Trump administration. But they also dug…
As Oaklanders approach the middle of the academic school year, both parents and middle school students are beginning to plan ahead by figuring out which high school will be the best fit for them next year. The Oakland Unified School District hosted a high school fair at Roosevelt Middle School on December 6, which attracted approximately 30 parents and students. During the fair, they had the chance visit with different high schools’ representatives and get their questions answered. School representatives from…
Fresh bread is baking in the oven. Feet shuffle swiftly along the kitchen floors. Chefs begin bagging and packing food to go. Two deliverers place big black boxes on carts to wheel to their vehicle. Inside each one are several neatly packaged white boxes filled with lunch orders. About seven people dance around the kitchen to assist them with the deliveries. Smooth 90’s R&B plays in the background while the staff works in unison. The chefs in this kitchen aren’t…
Cynthia Obleton was born and raised in Abandze, a coastal town in Ghana’s Central Region. She started braiding at age fifteen and opened her first salon at seventeen. In 2010, Obleton moved from Ghana to Oakland, where she started a braiding business at her house. In 2014, she opened Sankofa Braiding and Natural HairCare in South Berkeley. She says she wants her salon to be a place where black women feel comfortable. “I realized that I’m living in a place where…