Community
A group of North Oakland biohackers are trying to liberate the lifesaving medicine insulin by documenting an open source method for its synthesis – and they just nearly tripled their crowdfunding goal.
MegaBots Inc. turns BattleTech fans dreams into a reality in Oakland
Founded in April 2009, the Ger Youth Center is a non-profit organization based in Oakland dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional Mongolian visual and performing arts, culture and language among Bay Area Mongolian and Mongolian-American youth. Its flagship program, the Bi Mongol — or “I am Mongolian” — School operates out of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. The school offers biweekly classes in art, dancing, Mongolian language, chess, and more. The Ger Youth Center also coordinates a variety of cultural events open…
For the past 8 years, Oakland resident Eliot Daughtry has been trying to get three insurance agencies to approve his request for a hysterectomy. All three have denied him access to the procedure. On September 3, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began a 60-day public comment period on a proposed rule called “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities.” If implemented, the Affordable Care Act’s ban on discrimination based on race, color, national origin, disability, or age would be amended to include gender identity.
Cal’Vion Evans, an eighth grader at Roots International Academy, begins slowly, tapping the cymbals and toms with two wooden drumsticks. The drum set rests on a mini-stage, a short platform covered by a rug and flanked on either side by guitar stands, each with about 10 guitars leaning in. Cal’Vion speeds up gradually, his head movements changing from a gentle nodding with the music to a swivel as his drumming becomes faster and more furious. Then he slows back down,…
Reporters from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism ventured out over the past week to catch a glimpse of Oaklanders in their workplaces.
The acoustics are perfect in Frank Ogawa Plaza, the site of City Hall, on a Sunday. The clang of pots and pans resonate in a corner where a table is set up with turkey, gravy, and other Thanksgiving fixings covered with foil to keep it warm. “On the last Sunday of every month we like to put on a little feed and feed some of the folks in the community when they’re running out of money,” said Ed, a retiree…
Premature Baby Defies 28 Week Odds
Text by Melissa Batchelor Warnke. Photos by Luisa Conlon. It’s 6 am on a Sunday, and a group of men are sitting in a parking lot in the dark. They’re half of the Teen Challenge Choir—two dozen men and women in treatment for “life controlling issues.” They’re about to get in a big white van and head to the Cavalry Temple Church in Concord, California, about an hour north of the men’s home base in Oakland. It’s always cold this…