People
On Sunday afternoon, over 100 therapists, patients, and their supporters from across Northern California gathered in downtown Oakland to stage a vigil in front of Kaiser Permanente’s corporate office—one they said they’d run indefinitely until the corporation’s leadership takes big steps to make their clinicians’ jobs more sustainable and improve access to mental health care. Protesters in bright red shirts chanted “Mental health, not corporate wealth!” into the hot, empty plaza. They unfurled a 60-foot banner onto a low barbed…
No Spectators: Art of Burning Man provides the community with an engaging, interactive, and thought provoking look inside the world of Burning Man.
On Monday evening, parents, students and providers of special needs education in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) gathered at the Cole Campus to watch the premiere of Intelligent Lives, a documentary by filmmaker Dan Habib. “This movie is a tool to transform and change the label of intellectual disability from a life sentence of isolation,” he said as he spoke from New York in a recorded message to the viewing audience. Parents and educators watched attentively as the documentary…
It’s a Wednesday night and the crowd at the Oakland Public Library in the Dimond District is buzzing. The facilitator rings a green cowbell. “Get ready for your first date. You have five minutes,” she says over the PA in the corner. The daters rush to their assigned tables, some stopping to lift a last cookie from a table in the middle of the room that’s piled heavy with pastries. Though eager, these daters aren’t looking for love. Tonight, this…
Chris Colter, who has been working as a licensed barber for over a decade, hopes to open a barber academy in East Oakland. His mission for the academy is to provide opportunities for young African-American men to learn a viable trade.
On Saturday, Justin Mashouf, director of a new documentary “The Honest Struggle”, and Darrel “Sadiq” Davis, his subject, screened their film at the Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland. The documentary follows Davis, an African-American ex-offender and a Muslim, as he struggles to re-eintegrate into society.
Oakland comedian Kelly Anneken says she identifies as a “triple A”— alcoholic, anorexic and anxious. “Stand-up comedy,” she said in a performance last week, “is everybody’s last resort before suicide or grad school.” Suicide, of course, isn’t everybody’s idea of comedy, but Anneken’s audience, there for the Mental Health Comedy Hour, laughed. Founded earlier this year by two local comedians struggling with depression and anxiety, the monthly show is the only one of its kind in the Bay Area, and is…
Last week Oakland residents attended a monthly gathering dedicated to giving those behind bars a voice.
Oakland residents met this past Saturday to discuss housing affordability and the future of their community.