Oakland's Youth Uprising continues its ascension
Youth Uprising Campus
Youth Uprising, the powerhouse East Oakland nonprofit, didn't mark its sixth anniversary quietly.
Instead, the award-winning center used its celebration to raise awareness of the youth education crisis in East Oakland where 43 percent of residents over the age of 25 do not have a high school diploma and the dropout rate is 40 percent.
On Tuesday, the youth advocacy organization held a panel discussion that featured Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Tony Smith, the president of Laney College Elñora Webb and Julia Lopez, president and CEO of College Access Foundation.
The panelist engaged in a conversation with the audience on how to improve rates of high school graduation and build a college pipeline for youth that ensures long-term success.
Youth Uprising was founded in 1997 as a result of ongoing racial tensions and violence at Oakland’s Castlemont High School and has since evolved into a community beacon dedicated to youth development and leadership. Led by Olis Simmons, the nonprofit - which provides a range of services from health care to job opportunities - has become a national model in helping youth in underserved communities. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visited the campus and had high praise for Youth Uprising.
Simmons said it made sense for the innovative organization to use its anniversary to engage in a collective conversation about education and opportunity for Oakland youth.
"This is the time to invest in education," she said. "Education is the building block of democracy. So when we thought about our sixth anniversary we decided to focus it on pathways ... pathways to college, pathways to opportunities, pathways to, quite frankly, prosperity.
"And so we put together a group of people to talk about that specifically because we think that's got to be our collective agenda."
Smith said Youth Uprising is unquestionably an Oakland success story.
"I think Youth Uprising is a tremendous example of investing in young people and creating a space that's high quality," he said. "The physical infrastructure, the support and high expectation for the kids, this place is uncommon in that regard. So, six years in it has become one of the most special places in Oakland."
Simmons said in the first year of being opened, Oakland Uprising had 1,600 youth walk through its doors and sign up for services. Today, more than 5,500 youth call the site their second home and 47 percent of the Youth Uprising staff are youth and young adults.
"It was a whirlwind for us," said Simmons about Youth Uprising's first year.
The organization's rise could not have come at a better time for the city.
East Oakland living is hard for many of its residents. According to Youth Uprising, the community has an unemployment rate of 27 percent and the teen birth rate is three times the Alameda County average. About 24 percent of East Oakland residents live below the poverty line, which is twice the national average.
The nonprofit is now growing into its second phase, said Simmons
"I think the big thing for us this year, in terms of marking an anniversary, is the realization that we've moved out of the start up phase and we're now a full-fledged, stand-alone entity that is really an institution in Oakland," she said. "And that's a major, major accomplishment. For any organization, for profit or nonprofit."
Simmons said looking forward, the organization is wanting to continue to build its already strong ties to the city and other key organizations.
"The thing that we see is a much greater need for us to be in partnership and collaboration," she said. "Not the kind of partnership where everyone gets in on the partnership because there's money, but a partnerships that is about identifying where people's strengths are and each party coming to the table to contribute their strength."
Simmons told the audience at the evening event that Youth Uprising is about helping teens and young adults reach the next level.
"It's about giving young people a range of opportunities that meet them where they are and allow them to dream and aspire to be who they can be," Simmons said.
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Youth Uprising called me just last night to take a poll. This was the second time I've been contacted by them. The first was during the last presidential election. I found their questions extemely biased and certainly not without trying to sway my answer. Last night the focus was on corporate taxation and never a mention about youth. Based purely on their style of questioning and their seemingly lack of willingness to let me come up with my own answer, I won't be answering their polls anymore. The whole experience with them left a bad taste in my mouth.
BayAreaGirl723: I was subjected to a similar poll, but it was conducted by Oakland Rising, not Youth Uprising. Is it possible that you were also called by Oakland Rising, rather than Youth Uprising?
Olis Simmons continues to draw a 180,000 per year salary at Youth Uprising, while never having to show any results.
What a great program.
JW, you have a tendency sometimes to repackage essentially public relations releases from city officials and in this case, a large publicly funded non-profit without questioning their self serving claims.
As an antidote to that, you could point readers to Charly Pine's blog which can never find anything good to say about YU. As usual the truth must be somewhere in between, but since Pine has 0 economic stake in criticizing YU, but the people who work at YU have a major stake, I'd tend to give more weight to Pine.
http://www.orpn.org/Quan_budget1.htm
As far as Eric Holder's praise for YU, my reading of the media reports of his visit, were that he was a lot more restrained and lawyerly about praising an org he probably only knew from a 5 minute briefing on his ride to East O.
-len raphael, temescal
Regardless of whether one believes that non profits like YU do great work very efficiently, over the next couple of years residents will have to decide for themselves if they want to continue funding the anti violence, community action, job training, recreation such groups do now, vs closing libraries, vs shutting park rec centers, vs laying off cops, vs demanding that various combos of city employees take 15 to 25 % pay AND benefit cuts.
Those are not false choices. Even with a parcel tax and substantial police and fire concessions, we'll still be short 20 or 30 mill for just this year. Even more next year.
Residents have to start reaching concensus on what services/expenditures to cut before we don't have any choices just to meet payroll and bond obligations.
-len raphael, temescal
Len, your point about deciding where our money goes is a good one. I think the whole category of youth programs and what they achieve is something that needs to be looked at. Do youth programs address the drop out rate or prepare peope for jobs?
Or is the focus keeping people busy? Depends on the program, no doubt. YR has spawned some wonderful programs in the arts for youth in Oakland in my opinion, but there IS a larger question.