In addition to the six beds available to shelter homeless and runaway teens at the Rev. Coffee House, the facility offers numerous other drop-in servcies for a wider age range, explains shelter manager Anita Rosales.

There are more homeless teens in Sonomna County than one might imagine, says SAY's Matt Martin. And they aren't always easy to identify.

 

Only a few things can transcend the histories and circumstances of the hardened inmates at San Quentin prison. Music is one of them.


 

Sebastopol guitarist and youth advocate Buzzy Martin will read from his book and talk about his experiences at Copperfield's Books in Sebstopol, Thursday evening, September 16 at 7 pm.

What’s the antidote to gangs, unemployment and juvenile crime? In part, it’s the newly rechristened Conservation Corps North Bay.

Marilee Eckert, the organization's Executive Director, explains that their expansion into Sonoma County was begun in early 2009, with the support and encouragement of many local leaders.


Looking ahead, Eckert sees a busy future for the Conservation Corps North Bay, doing more of what they are already working on.

The Conervation Corps was  featured previously on the North Bay Report when they launched their Sonoma County operations in January, 2009.

Sonoma County’s ground-breaking website to monitor and guide the overall health of the local population is winning appreciative national attention, including recognition from US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius (left).

The impressive county health website was a prototype for the county’s partners in the project, and Supervisor Brown says Sonoma County benefited as they shouldered most of the considerable costs involved in its design and development.

The Israeli occupation of The West Bank and Gaza Strip has clearly been a hardship for the Palestinian people there, but activist Dorothy Naor (left)   believes it has also inflicted deep costs on Israel as well.

Dorothy Naor (bio below) will present a talk titled “The Cost of Colonization and Occupation to Israelis and Palestinians,” May 27 at 7:00 pm at the Glaser Center, 547  Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa.

Dorothy Naor (bio below) observes that each generation in Israel grows up amidst a near-constant series of preparations for warfare, something she sees as shaping the character of the nation in some undesirable ways.

The continuing expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza (such as those enclosed by the protective wall in the photo at right) is not just condoned by the Israeli government, Naor objects, but heavily subsidized, too.

Dr. Dorothy Naor lives in Herzliah, near Tel Aviv. An activist with he Israeli dissident groups New Profile, an Israeli feminist and anti-militarist group, she participates in virtually all activities having to do with occupation policy and civil rights in Israel. Most recently, she has become involved in the Israeli Committee for Residency Rights (ICRR), an ad hoc committee working on residency rights for Palestinians and for allowing entry to the West Bank. Dorothy takes people on informal tours to the West Bank and is one of those who responds to the many calls of distress from people in the West Bank who are stuck at checkpoints, need medical care in Israel, etc.

Dorothy was born in San Francisco but immigrated to Israel in her early 20s, in 1958. She has lived in Israel for most of the past 50 years.  She worked for many years as a teacher of English and has a PhD in Education. One of her main concerns is the effect the occupation is having on Israeli society, i.e., increase in domestic violence and violence in general, brutalization of the young, increase in mental illness, etc.