We are proud to announce...

- The 1st Annual - OAKLANDISH INNOVATORS AWARD FUND " ... recognizing trail blazing community work in the East Bay Area". The Oaklandish Innovators Award is a fresh new fund set up to offer annual financial awards to individuals and organizations doing pioneering community work in the Alameda County area. Throughout the year Oaklandish staff has worked to research and identify the nominees, while networking to secure financial sponsorship and grants from both public & private institutions. in 2006, the first awards will go to five diverse local projects, offering 5 thousand dollars to each (for a total of $25,000). The recipients represent a wide range of cultural interests and populations, and are not restricted by any social or political agenda. They simply exemplify the values of innovation and progress for all people in Oakland. Our goal is for the fund to slowly grow and eventually offer more significant contributions, as well as to bring attention and exposure to those projects who symbolize the "Oaklandish" ideal. Now, we are proud to announce the 2006 Oaklandish Innovators Award Recipients: On The Bricks This project is a 6 week re-entry internship program for youth returning from Alameda County Juvenile Hall or California Juvenile Justice Division. The internship's focus will be to educate and support youth (16-24) in their transition, through one on one & group counseling, mentorship, field trips, and job preparedness. Interns receive a stipend for their participation in the program. http://web.mac.com/tcoleman96/iWeb/Onefam/O.T.B.%20Mentorship.html Digital Underground Story Telling for Youth D.U.S.T.Y. is an afterschool program for middle and high school students in Oakland. There are three sites currently: Cole Middle School, Castlemont Community of Small Schools, and Hoover Elementary School. DUSTY students work on computers to create their own Digital Stories, as well at to generate rap and hip hop "beats and rhymes." Throughout the creative process, students learn to master programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Fruity Loops with the help of skilled instructors. At the end of each semester, the students' creative masterpieces, including digital stories, raps, beats, and performances are showcased in some sort of final event at The Parkway Theatre, The Metro, and other local venues. D.U.S.T.Y. is part of the West Oakland Center for Digital and Multimedia Literacy. The Center combines Internet access and multimedia activities with literacy instruction for West Oakland residents of all ages. It is a joint project developed by the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement and the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. http://oaklanddusty.org/ SpaceShare SpaceShare develops environmental networking tools that help people connect, travel together, and save resources. Their core focus is carpooling: we look for existing communities that can both support a carpooling system and in turn be strengthened by the connections created. The Innovators Awards Grant will allow SpaceShare to design and implement a carpool system for an East Bay faith community (church, synagogue, or mosque). Our hope is that this grant will fund a pilot ride sharing program that will quickly spread to communities across the country and perhaps beyond. http://spaceshare.com/ WAGES: Women's Action To Receive Economic Security The mission of WAGES is to promote the social and economic empowerment of low-income women through cooperative business ownership. Their unique strategy is to develop eco-friendly housecleaning companies that provide stable, safe and dignified work for their worker-owners while protecting the environment in which we live. With WAGES' assistance, women move out of poverty through cooperative ownership. They make use of the cooperative model to allow women to pool their skills and work together to succeed. A cooperative is a business owned and controlled by those who work in it. Members make decisions democratically by giving each person a vote and distributing income equitably to all workers. http://www.wagescooperatives.org/ East Bay Asian Youth Center Founded in 1976, the East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC) is a private non-profit community-building organization based in the San Antonio neighborhood district of the city of Oakland. EBAYC has a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual membership of over 700 Oakland families who are involved in one of five after-school learning centers, located at Franklin Elementary School, Garfield Elementary School, Manzanita Elementary School, Roosevelt Middle School, and the East Bay Asian Youth Center. EBAYC also has a membership of over 100 families who participate in R.I.S.E., an after-school learning center at Berkeley High School. EBAYC after-school learning centers provide its youth members an integrated array of learning activities, including academic instruction, college & career awareness, health education, sports, outdoor adventures, performing, visual, and media arts, and community service projects. We also provide our high school student members comprehensive internships as reading coaches, sports coaches, social action researchers, and documentary video producers. http://www.ebayc.org To nominate individuals or organizations for the 2007 awards, please submit info to: innovators@oaklandish.org (Recipients must be a non-profit, or have 501c3 fiscal sponsorship).