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Coalition Partners

Our partners

Partnership and coalition building are core to OKF’s values and approach empowering youth to advance educational equity or racial justice campaigns through intergenerational organizing. OKF centers the voice, experience, and leadership of young people in shared or adult-led spaces in order to build their power and agency in making positive changes.

OKF is part of two coalitions. We are a founding organization of the Justice for Oakland Students (J4OS) Coalition and are the anchor organization of the Oakland Youth Vote Coalition (OYV). OYV also established a Core Leaders Committee specifically for youth members of each organization that OKF also helps to facilitate. Coalition partners include: Oakland Youth Commission (OYC), OUSD’s All City Council Student Union (ACC), AYPAL, Californians for Justice (CFJ), Youth Together (YT), Bay Area PLAN, Parents United for Public Schools, and Parent Voices.

OKF is also a long-standing partner of OUSD’s Student, Family & Community Engagement Office and All City Council Student Union.

Our staff work in close partnership with school principals and lead agencies to integrate Castlemont Community School Initiatives and REAL HARD with high school campuses. We partner closely with the lead agencies BACR at Fremont and Oakland Tech; EBAYC at Oakland High School; Youth Together (YT) at Skyline; and OKF’s own staff who direct the Knight Time and Knight Success programs at Castlemont.

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Image of Senayt Sium

Senayt Sium

Organizer

(She/Her/Hers) is a Program Coordinator for REAL HARD and facilitates after school programs at Oakland Tech and Oakland High School. She attended OUSD public school and is a proud alumni of Oakland High School. Senayt is a first generation college graduate from University of California, Davis in Sociology with concentration in Law and Society, Public Health Science and Chicano/a Studies. One of her key passions is advocacy. She strongly believes in addressing and combating systemic issues that affect marginalized communities.

She strives to empower and support youth in developing essential skills while fostering activism. As a former REAL HARD student organizer, Senayt is very excited to be working with youth, and provide them with the necessary resources to support and help them accomplish their goals.

Peter Truong

Peter Truong

PROGRAM MANAGER

Peter (he/him/his) supports staff across OKF programs to incorporate best practices in positive youth development. Peter oversees the REAL HARD after school program and supports all chapters to develop youth-led transformational school culture campaigns.

Peter also writes curriculum for Oakland Kids First programs and supports organization-wide youth organizing campaigns such as development of the Student Justice Platform. A life long learner and educator, Peter earned a degree in Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.

Cara Holiday

Cara Holiday

SENIOR DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Cara (she/her/hers) is the Senior Development Manager who oversees fundraising, communications, grant writing and reporting and also serves on the senior management team. She has been part of the OKF community since 2009 in a range of roles including volunteering as a board member from 2009-2012, and then working on staff.

Cara currently works for OKF remotely from her hometown of St. Louis, MO. Throughout her career, Cara has focused on supporting students to reach their individual goals to graduate and access post-secondary education while also advocating to improve systems and equity in public schools. She earned a MA in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies from Stanford University, a teaching credential from San Francisco State University, and a BA in English from Washington University in St. Louis.

Previous positions include working as Assistant Director at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University, as a Community Programs Manager for Alternatives in Action and as an English teacher on the McClymonds high school campus in OUSD. In her free time, Cara enjoys hiking with her family and two dogs, and exploring the local food scene.