During the development phase for the performance, we provided 350 youth with workshops, sometimes partnering with existing schools and probation programs, other times producing the workshops ourselves.

The workshops varied in length from two hours to several weeks. For example, Code 33 participated in the Oakland Unified School District’s Peer Mentoring Conference with a two-hour workshop on neighborhood mapping, and two artists presented a one hour workshop for 90 youth at Camp Sweeney, the treatment program for juvenile offenders. We created month-long Saturday workshops in photography and 15 week after-school art workshops for youth in Community Probation Programs. We ran workshops out of neighborhood recreation centers for eight paid youth production teams, led by video artists, to produce and edit documentaries on Oakland neighborhoods.

Our most intensive involvement was with the youth leadership team, a group of 12 youth that met weekly in City Hall for a year. From this group we recruited youth to work on performance planning. Over ten years, TEAMs goal was to train youth in media literacy, public speaking, writing, and art production skills in order to empower their critical analysis, self representation, and image making abilities. We focused on education in self awareness and awareness of youth as a “group” with specific needs and rights. Workshops and youth production teams were a key strategy in our work.