| Building a better Oakland, one popsicle stick at a time
In their version of West Oakland, the fish market is in-between the fire station and the senior living facility. A movie theater, bowling alley, pet store, and farm are near the AHC. Hoover Elementary School is on the next block, near the community garden, toy store, clothing shop, and arcade. It's a Friday afternoon, and I'm sitting in on a session of ArtEsteem, one of the AHC's after-school programs. The twenty kids in attendance are busy building a community--one made from popsicle sticks, foam, paint, bits of wire mesh, and glue. These 3-D models are the culmination of fifteen weeks of learning about Oakland's government, settlement history, sewage and water systems, demographics, and regional ecology under the guidance of ArtEsteem's director, Amana Harris. As part of their latest project, the children conducted videotape interviews with local residents, including a social worker, the owner of the liquor store on the corner, and a former drug dealer. After color-coding plots of West Oakland "beautiful," "ugly," or "interesting," the kids decided what to keep, eliminate, or transform. It's about allowing these kids to dream about a better life in the here and now, explains Kokomon. "We ask, 'What do you want to do?' now and plant the seeds. 'Do you want to be a lawyer? Well, what does it take to be a lawyer? Work on it.'" Even this little bit of daydreaming can be quite a luxury on the tough streets of Oakland. The city has already seen eighty-four murders this year; in 2001, there were eighty-seven murders. Drugs, prison, and materialism--and music that worships these things--are pervasive in children's lives here. "The guys want to go to jail even if they're from decent families," Amana says. "Here, skills for boys are being able to count money, counting how many crack rocks you have, and standing on your feet for a long time." While boys are running in the streets learning to be drug dealers, girls are shouldering the burdens of teen pregnancy. "There are so many forces here that set kids up to fail," Amana says. "It's not like school gets closed down if there's a shooting. Nobody's really protected." That grim reality is all too clear to ten-year-old Tyrese Johnson. "People are already starting to do doughnuts," says Tyrese, a veteran of the ArtEsteem program. "And there was a shooting near my school a year ago. I didn't really want to walk home. I was afraid they'd start shooting again." Through painting, photography, and other creative outlets for their energies, ArtEsteem seeks to soothe the fears that afflict kids like Tyrese. "This climate is full of conflict," says Amana. "It's at school. They bring it over here. But we're teaching them how to perceive negativity so it doesn't penetrate them deeply." Program graduate Kamilah Craword says ArtEsteem changed her life. When she started attending sessions back in middle school, she had an "attitude" in class. "I was talking back, not doing what I was supposed to ... I put all my negative energy on everybody in the class," she wrote in one of the center's newsletters. ArtEsteem helped Kamilah to get "back on track." Now, rather than taking to the streets or sitting at home bored, she volunteers at the center almost every day. She helps Amana run ArtEsteem as the organization's secretary, and swears by its effectiveness. "If this program wasn't here I wonder where the kids would be right now. Would they be in jail? Would they be on drugs?" Tyrese knows what he would be doing: "I'd be sitting at home, looking at the TV, getting fat. Or maybe riding around skating and stuff. But nothing artistic like this." He gets very excited when talking about his favorite project, the kids' larger-than-life portrait of themselves as superheroes saving West Oakland. "Super T," he explains, has laser vision, super-strength, and, most importantly, "the power to change people's minds, to make bad people good." You could say that ArtsEsteem has had a similar effect on Tyrese. "I used to litter, but I don't do it anymore," he points out. Breonna Cole, the nonprofit consultant, praises the AHC's use of art to change children's attitudes. The center, she says, has become a "place of last resort" for students who have been neglected by the school system. "The schools have no money or resources to invest in the kids," she says. "The critical issue in Oakland public schools is that we have violence in schools and a disastrous lack of art." Parents also respond favorably to the program. Oakland resident and parent Anthony Hall says he particularly appreciates how ArtEsteem grounds art in the community, connecting the children to a larger sense of what it means to live in Oakland. "Here, the kids also develop friendships and relationships with other kids who are not going to the same school. They get to share common interests," Hall says. Kids who come to the program are sometimes labeled as troublemakers by their schools. Amana prefers to see them as "incredibly neglected, but full of love." She has had to deal with so-called "kings of conflict" many times over the years, and under her close care, problem children often calm down and end up having perfect attendance. She remembers one boy who started out belligerent and, after she worked to win his trust, eventually confided in her, telling her in a note: "I need help." But he later turned out to be too much for even Amana to handle. This boy's defense mechanism, as she puts it, was "to be as offensive as can be," and he would constantly antagonize the other kids. In the interest of keeping the program's atmosphere as positive as possible, Amana had to expel him. Amana herself grew up several blocks from where the AHC now has its office, and she still lives in the neighborhood with her husband and her daughter Sabah. The curriculum she is developing for ArtEsteem is part of her graduate work in multicultural education at the University of San Francisco's Center for Teaching Excellence and Social Justice. Amana says she began working at the AHC because she wanted to put her art school degree and teaching background to work for the community. Her belief is that a program like ArtEsteem can help combat the negativity that she says is swallowing up young people. At the end of each ArtEsteem class, Amana and the children join hands in a circle and observe a moment of silence. Then Amana leads the kids in their daily refrain: "We are a community. We support one another. We are willing to listen and learn and absorb all goodness as we breathe." At the end of the circle, she asks, "Okay, who's mature enough for extra responsibility?" If all goes well, everybody. Building a better Oakland, one popsicle stick at a time |