2007: datacenter turns 30 | reclaiming research camp | research justice at USSF | sustainable energy| sacred peaks | education not incarceration | koreatown community agenda | taxi worker movement | meso-america mega-development | household workers | tobacco language discrimination

Save The Date! DataCenter 30th Anniversary Gala
Our Lives • Our Stories • Our Vision

Thursday, October 25th 2007, 6pm -9pm
Historic Sweet's Ballroom, Oakland

You are specially invited to share an evening of Jubilation & Storytelling as DataCenter celebrates thirty years of service to the Movement. Join us as we celebrate our special honorees All Of Us Or None (National), Domestic Workers United (NYC) and a surprise honoree. For more information on how to support this event, please contact 510-839-3100.

l.p. nguyen—Chair, 30th Gala Committee

To download & print the Invitation, click here
To download & print the Reply Card, ,click here
new! To read the 30TH PRESS RELEASE click this link.

[read more about the 30th]

Reclaiming Research Camp

photo: Celia Davis

DataCenter convened our first-ever two-day intensive Reclaiming Research Camp in August for organizers and community leaders in the Bay Area and Central Valley. Twenty participants from youth, criminal justice, economic justice and environmental justice movements learned how research can empower community and support campaigns, and are bringing tools and skills back to their communities to strengthen organizing and develop expert researchers ‘on the ground.’

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Telling Our Stories: Research Justice at USSF

photo: guillermo

The first U.S. Social Forum, held in Atlanta this summer, was an exhilarating and powerful convergence of grassroots social movements from across the U.S. and international allies seeking to build another world together. DataCenter traveled to the USSF to kick off a growing movement for research justice and to build strategic research expertise in organizing communities. We convened Telling Our Stories: Information by and for the people!, a participatory workshop exploring how research methodologies and infrastructure privilege those with power and perpetuate systemic oppression, and identifying strategies for reclaiming research to build community power and liberation.

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San Francisco Peaks Stand Sacred

Native American Nations and environmental groups won an important victory this Spring, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a proposed ski area development and expansion on the sacred San Francisco Peaks would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. DataCenter has worked with the Save the Peaks Coalition since 2004, providing research support and training, and strategic campaign planning. Our research approach has distinguished between data and facts needed to defend one's position, and traditional wisdom and knowledge necessary to inform strategies and tactics that are culturally appropriate for the native communities involved. However, the struggle is not yet over. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice filed for a rehearing and appeal “en banc” on behalf of the Forest Service.

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Access to Education, Not Incarceration

Education Not Incarceration is a national organization of youth, educators, parents and concerned community members working with Bay Area educators and school boards to ensure students aren’t denied access to education and pushed into prison. DataCenter has supported ENI's work with data and analysis on suspension and expulsion of youth of color in Oakland schools, fact sheets about school closures in Oakland and the overuse of out of school punishment in San Francisco, and consultation on campaign strategy.

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Research Supports Growing Taxi Worker Movement

photo: Ron Blount

On a chilly morning in January, DataCenter staff arrived at the train station in Philadelphia to meet with organizers of Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania (TWA-PA). Organizers listed out the key issues drivers face in Philly that include low wages, health problems, excessive fining, lack of legal services and health access and the forced use of GPS systems. These items were then converted into a 30-minute survey being conducted by taxi workers this summer.

There is upsurge of requests within the taxi industry for research support that is reflective of a huge and momentous movement that is occurring in the industry across the country.

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Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca Resist Multinationals' Takeover of Community Lands

photo: Celia Davis

The popular uprising last year in Oaxaca, Mexico is no longer in the news except to say Oaxaca City is quiet and the state government is trying to bring tourists back. The reality is quite different. A brutal repression is taking place, with many people in jail, exiled outside the state of Oaxaca, harassed, in hiding or killed. At the same time the popular opposition continues to organize through APPO, Popular Oaxacan People’s Assembly. DataCenter has partnered with APPO member UCIZONI for six years to educate people throughout Mexico and Central America about the dangers of the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), a development project launched in 2001 by the Mexican government and the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) aimed at opening up southern Mexico and Central America to international commerce through large infrastructure projects.

[read story]