In her recent visit to the Gaza Strip, a Sebastopol woman left behind some hot pink playground equipment, and brought back a heightened humanitarian concern for the region's residents.

CodePink , the San Francisco-based women's peace organization, assembled an international delegation of 66  that included Barbara Briggs-Ledson of Sebastopol, for a five-day visit to the Gaza Strip early this month, just ahead of President Obama's visit to Egypt. While they were there,the CodePink represetatives were given a letter from the leadership of Hamas to deliver to the President, inviting him to also visit Gaza. Read the letter here .

The sliver of land known as the Gaza Strip comprises just 139 square miles, covering roughly the distance between Sebastopol and Petaluma and extending halfway out to the coast. Home to 1.5 million residents, nearly half of them children and youth, it is intensively urbanized--the refugee camps are blocks of concrete apartment buildings. So Barbara Briggs-Letson says she took particular pleasure in helping bring something colorful for the kids to that scene.

Barbara Briggs-Letson (in white) smiles for the camera along with the Palestinian women who acted as translators for the  CodePink visitors. In addition to bringing and assembling the playgrounds, the CodePink delegation visited hospitals and other public facilities, Briggs-Letson says they also met with some of the area's political leaders.

Damaged buildings at every turn were a constant reminder of day-to-day dangers of life in the Gaza Strip, says Briggs-Letson. And there were others, too.

You can see more photos from the Code Pink Gaza delegation's trip here. 

Free To Be, a  Santa Rosa-based sex education program, is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union for violating California's ban on abstinence-only teaching in public schools.

 Although we were not able to reach a Free To Be representative to be interviewed for this report, their website describes a program that "motivates and equips youth to live an abstinent life-style, encouraging healthy choices for a healthy future." They explain their educational approach in greater detail here.

Prior to 2004, explains Phyllida Burlingame, Sex Education Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California, the state's rules governing how and what schools could teach as Sex Education were a confusing jumble. That's one reason her organization helped update the California Education Code to the standard that is in place today.

 One significant difference between the current federal policy, a lingering holdover from the Bush administration, is that while the federal law supporting abstinence-only sex education programs explicitly prohibits favorable treatment of other forms of pregnancy prevention, California's law also requires that abstinence be taught, but as part of a broader array of possible options.

Below is a list, compiled by the ACLU, of Sonoma County Public Schools that have used Free To Be. They have been asked to confirm, before the end of this month, that they will not continue to use the program in the coming school year.

  Here's an online review of Glko Wellman's Guiding Their Way -- Day by Day. 

Children today are born into a very different society than their parents or grand-parents, observes Glo Wellman (left) . But the basic nature of the kids themselves is essentially the same as it has been for generations.

In addition to teaching Child Development at Santa Rosa Junior College Glo Wellman has been a long-time staff members at the California Parenting Institute.

It worked in Napa. Now a youth-led service center for young people aging out of foster care has launched a second outlet in Santa Rosa.

Mitch Findley helps move office furniture into the new V.O.I.C.E.S. office in Santa Rosa.

Only recently have the needs of youth aging out of Foster Care gotten much public attention. But the high rates of homelessness, unemployment and early parenthood create additional demand on public social service systems that are already overburdened. So proactive alternatives such as V.O.I.C.E.S. are garnering widespread attention.

When V.O.I.C.E.S first opened their doors in Napa, Mitch Findley (left)  says they had to learn how to define and explain themselves to the community around them. By now, they've gotten pretty good at it.

Learn more about Voices here.

V.O.I.C.E.S. Sonoma County 

335 College Ave

Santa Rosa, CA 94509 

Phone: 707-579-4327