OASES RISE Middle School Program
60 youth in grades 6-8, 2 Hours/Day, 4 Days/Week
60 youth in grades 6-8, 2 Hours/Day, 4 Days/Week
Diversity and Leadership
OASES provides recent immigrant youth with a safe space to create community and build their self-esteem. Youth are immersed in small group settings to build the confidence and compassion necessary to participate in public schools. In 2007-08, OASES successfully expanded the diversity education curriculum while relocating to Westlake Middle School as a school-based partner with the extended day program, Eagle Village Community Center. The program gives youth an opportunity to learn about issues of gender, power and privilege, and race within the context of their very unique public middle school.
Media Production and Awareness
In 2007-08, OASES was proud to give youth an outlet to address negative stereotypes of people from different backgrounds, which is one of the major problems they face in Oakland's middle schools. OASES inspired youth to challenge harmful stereotypes by holding space for them to create alternative, positive images. The RISE program encourages students to express themselves artistically and tell their stories through ‘doc your block’ photography projects, original poetry, anime drawing, research projects, and music production. These narratives of resisting stereotypes, exploring identity, family, passions and community culminate at the end of each semester with each student completing an iMovie media project. The Spring 2008 semester project theme is Transitions.
Computer Literacy and Public Speaking
OASES provides basic computer instruction to new immigrants, as well as opportunities to practice public speaking based on their projects, such as digital storytelling, music production and presentation using cutting-edge software such as Reason, Adobe Photoshop, Keynote, and iMovie.