Stories

My phone call with Ryan Samn opened with the busy sounds of clattering kitchenware ringing in the background.

“Sorry, I’m making dinner with my family right now,” He quickly explained. I myself was hidden in the back room of the tutoring center I work at on Thursday nights. The center was quiet, most of the students having left to return home for their own family dinners, and so I welcomed the familiar sounds of pots and pans, of running water.

The Magic of Music by Emma Grover From May 9th through May 25th, students of Oakland International High School will participate in the first in-school

In August, we wrapped up our fourth annual Youth Summer Art Camp. This year we teamed up with the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants (CERI) and the Department of Occupational Therapy at Samuel Merritt University to develop a unique experience for children from refugee and immigrant communities in the East Bay.

Ours is a story of forced migration, ours is a story of multiple worlds. As a child we knew when a relative had died back home – it manifested in my father’s silence, or my mother’s many bodily ailments. We are familiar with distant loss and nearby silent suffering.

Miles Markstein’s shift into the social sector was with the city of Santa Cruz, where he helped draft public statements and prepare events for the