www.ahc-oakland.org
[email protected]
Telephone: 510-652-5530
Fax: 510-652-8233

Mailing Address:
1980 Mandela Parkway
Oakland, CA 94607

Contact Person:
Amana Harris, Executive Director

ArtEsteem
Since 1995, AHC’s award-winning art and literacy program has helped develop creative, engaged and successful children/youth through building knowledge and emotional, social, academic and intellectual skills. ArtEsteem engages students and supports their positive development – body, mind, and heart. Our programs help keep children and youth interested in school through creating individual and collective educational excellence across academic subjects.

In addition to art classes for children and youth, ArtEsteem Art Instructors provide professional development consulting and hands-on training for educators in art curricula –and also in support of academic subjects (e.g. science and social studies) – to help teachers develop visually engaging and hands-on methods that improve student involvement, comprehension, and critical thinking.

Participants discover how to self reflect and dream, as well as focus on their tasks and “follow through” by completing their art projects. Our methods guide students to think practically about the world and their abilities to manifest positive and creative outcomes. Classes also build students’ language and math literacy, aesthetic appreciation, listening and performance skills. Our students learn – through dialogue, reading, and writing – conceptual understandings of social, historical, and cultural topics to engage and inform their minds, and develop the whole child, in expansive ways.

Good Neighbor Program
In 2009 AHC began a partnership with the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA). AHC created and currently implements an exemplary curriculum for the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) and Public Housing clients through the Good Neighbor Program (GNP).

The Good Neighbor Program exposes Oakland Housing Authority residents to the wider Oakland community, civic engagement opportunities, City of Oakland and Alameda County officials, other government and community based organizations as well as the assets in their communities.

AHC implements two components to the Good Neighbor Program: the Neighborhood Orientation Workshop (NOW) and the Neighborhood Leadership Institute (NLI). NOW and NLI were conceptualized as a means to support residents in building the inner transformational tools, skills, service learning, and resources in order to create more positive communities, schools, and safe neighborhoods through civic engagement for themselves and their families despite the negative influences and challenging circumstances many of them experience. The curriculum is designed to inform and educate participants about the opportunities and services offered by OHA and the resources that exist within the City of Oakland, Alameda County, and their neighborhoods.

For further information please contact: Aeeshah Clottey, Director of Special Projects at [email protected] or 510.652.5537.

Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project
The Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project is West Oakland and Emeryville’s first large scale mural revitalization and beautification project. As part of the planning process, AHC surveyed residents of the Hoover Corridor Neighborhood where the murals will be immediately located. Community members were asked to describe positive and negative aspects of the neighborhood as well, as their hopes and dreams for the community and future public art pieces. Responses determine the content of the murals. AHC will be hiring mainly Oakland based artists to paint the murals, as the whole process will promote and exemplify community collaboration from beginning to end.

The murals will be designed and conceptualized by local middle and high school students. The project is giving youth the rare opportunity to be critically engaged in a public forum and really allowing their voices to be heard.

Tree of Life Mural Project
The Tree of Life represents hope and forgiveness. It is an 8’ X 28’ mural inspired by the youth, where the hope it represents stems from the love for our community. The youth involved are long time residents in the Hoover corridor neighborhood and/or youth participants in AHC’s Youth Leadership Now program. The youth envision their community as a place where peace, beauty, resolution and unity is consistently cultivated, nurtured and valued.

As youth were engaged in a process to brainstorm ideas for the project, they continually expressed concern for their community and a deep desire to acknowledge the loss of young lives. They dedicated the project to four innocent West and East Oakland based children whose lives were senselessly and violently taken away from those that loved them. These children were three toddlers and one youth, torn from a world of possibilities, torn from their futures and their legacy.

As youth were engaged in a process to brainstorm ideas for the project, they continually expressed concern for their community and a deep desire to acknowledge the loss of young lives. They dedicated the project to four innocent West and East Oakland based children whose lives were senselessly and violently taken away from those that loved them. These children were three toddlers and one youth, torn from a world of possibilities, torn from their futures and their legacy.

The Tree of Life opens up the doors to forgiveness. Forgiveness for a society that breeds such brutality and forgiveness for the souls that have become locked in its thorny weeds. With forgiveness comes health, with health comes freedom, with freedom comes love and peace. The Tree of Life creates a pathway towards peace and enlightenment for our community for generations to come.

West Oakland Youth Mini Grant (WOYMG)
The West Oakland Youth Mini Grant is a program co-designed between AHC and the Alameda County Public Health Department. The program trains youth ages 13-24 to be philanthropist in their community. Youth participate in a structured training program that combines philanthropy, youth leadership, and youth development to create a unique match to the participants.

The West Oakland Youth Mini Grant participants will learn the fundamentals of grant making and ultimately distribute a total of $10,000 annually through the grant making process.

Youth Leadership Now
In 2008 the Youth Leadership Now program was created in order to address the lack of youth empowerment, activism, and engagement amidst a severe state of community decay. West Oakland is a beautiful community whose assets are clouded by the ills that plague its residents day to day. West Oakland is faced with issues of drug abuse, prostitution, poverty, poor education, and violence. Youth are severely impacted and grow up believing that there is no hope in West Oakland. They often become prey to the dangers of their community and many forget the importance of working to be the change that they want to see in their communities and the world at large.
Youth Leadership Now works to create a safe, loving, and respectful community for West Oakland youth to dream and become agents of change.

YLN has launched its year-long project, Looking through Our Lens, in order to engage 10 West Oakland youth through the art of photography, research, and community engagement. Through this project youth will learn the basics to photography, editing, presentation, and research methods. This project seeks to expand the academic, social, and cultural horizons of youth. Through their photography youth will re-discover the beauty in themselves and their community.

In combination with their photography work, youth will research community issues that impact them in order to create Projects for Change that address their issues. This work aims to transform youth into active community voices that create solutions and change in their community. Ultimately, the images captured through the participants will be professionally exhibited in West Oakland and throughout the Bay Area.

Mindful Drumming
Mindful Drumming is rooted in modern thought, Eastern Spiritual Principles, and Ancient Indigenous Wisdom. Drawing upon the twin concepts of rhythm and sound, Mindful Drumming is a way to connect straight to the heart. Mindful Drumming and prayerful body movements are used to explore the secret art of rhythm and sound, as revealed through ancestral portals of the indigenous Ga people of West Africa. The ancient art of synchronistic rhythms and sounds can be used for healing and for unleashing the spirit of human potential.

Rhythm, sound, and vibration are used as a powerful form of meditation that helps clear the mind and heal the heart. Creating a rhythmic space in a drum circle, bringing individuals together in a collective journey to a higher level of life energy, also aids the art of community building. Performances/demonstrations for events and private lessons also available.

2014 Community Partner Recognition Award

PROJECT: ArtEsteem PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Amana Harris

\"The Community Service Learning (CSL) Program, a unit within the Institute for Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE), recognizes and honors one community partner each year for contributing to the institutionalization of community service learning (CSL) at San Francisco State University.

The CSL program is proud to announce Attitudinal Healing Connection (AHC) and ArtEsteem from Oakland, CA as this year\'s recipient of the Community Partner Recognition Award. For close to 20 years the AHC/ArtEsteem art and literacy program has helped develop creative, engaged and successful children/youth through building knowledge and emotional, social, academic and intellectual skills.

The program has reached 50,000+ youth and adults, and provided programs to approximately 57 schools in Oakland and the larger East Bay. Most recently, AHC/ArtEsteem, through the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project (OSH), unveiled the 2nd mural of West Oakland/Emeryville’s largest mural revitalization and beautification efforts. This project to date has engaged over 200 youth as agents of change in their communities, created over 80 jobs, enhanced the neighborhood, and reduced blight.

Staff at this organization have been an inspiration and unwavering supporter of the SF State Community Arts Design Studio (CARD) since its beginnings. Their inspiration on community empowerment, has inspired and fills San Francisco State students with passion and drive.\"

2014 Jampolsky Award

PROJECT: The “Good Neighbor Program.” PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Aeeshah Clottey

The Good Neighbor Program (GNP) is an innovation of Attitudinal Healing consisting of two projects designed to uplift the lives of low-income individuals: The Neighborhood Orientation Workshop (NOW) and the Neighborhood Leadership Institute (NLI).

NOW is a four-hour workshop and the NLI is a twelve-week leadership program. Both are creative curriculums grounded in the theory of change that the practical application of Attitudinal Healing offers. “The essence of our being is love” is a cornerstone of both curriculums, designed for low-income individuals that reside in Federal Housing Programs. The GNP program offers transformative intervention strategies and helps individuals heal from trauma. The curriculums support the development of resiliency by promoting self-awareness, mindfulness and compassion.

In neighborhoods riddled with poverty, violence and fear, the GNP has been a beacon of light for individuals who were rooted in fear and hopelessness, and can be duplicated both nationally and globally.

2002 Jampolsky Award

PROJECT: “ArtEsteem Program.” PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Amana Harris

ArtEsteem is an early childhood violence prevention program for at-risk children and youth living in severely disadvantaged circumstances. The project is an amalgamation of art and the Principles of Attitudinal Healing, using self-reflective art as a way to reduce violence, improve cognitive and literal skills, encourage community building, and raise self-esteem. The program, active since 1995, serves children between the ages of 5 and 14 who live in West Oakland, California.

2000 Jampolsky Award

The Attitudinal Healing Connection - Oakland received the \"Sustainable Excellence Award.\" From the beginning, the mission of The Attitudinal Healing Connection has been to use Attitudinal Healing \"to eliminate violence in the lives of our children, our families and our communities.\" For more than 10 years, The Attitudinal Healing Connection has developed successful programs to accomplish its goal of providing \"education and support that facilitates the shift in perception from fear to love.\" Through afterschool programs, workshops, trainings, conferences, anddistribution of the book \"Beyond Fear,\" The Attitudinal Healing Connection\'s \"Racial Healing Project\" applies the principles and processes of Attitudinal Healing to the issues of ethnic tension and racial conflict. The Attitudinal Healing Connection is a model center, addressing the needs of its local and global community with the highest quality of innovative service. It is also the co-founder and now mentor to the CAH in Accra, Ghana in West Africa.

AHI Radio is a series of audio recordings featuring the work and innovations of Attitudinal Healing around the world. Aeeshah Clottey, Kokomon Clottey and Amana Harris from Attitudinal Healing Connection - Oakland join Jerry Jampolsky, M.D. and Diane Cirincione, Ph.D. to discuss the evolution of a Center for Attitudinal Healing. Click here to listen to more podcasts.

Kokomon\'s BlogTalkRadio show continues a discussion on Music: A Path to Happiness. The idea that music can have therapeutic value is far from new. Egypt, chant therapies were seen as integral to the healing process. According to new research, people love music for much the same reason they’re drawn to sex, drugs, and gambling and delicious food. When you listen to tunes that move you, the study found, your brain releases dopamine, a chemical involved in both motivation and addiction. Click here to listen!