AAUW Dialog

As a young Indian immigrant, Sadaf was part of the first Oasis girls’ group held at Columbia Park housing in San Francisco’s  South of Market neighborhood. She offered to teach Indian dance to the other girls; in middle school she became a banker at the Youth Credit Union, encouraging her peers to begin thinking about saving money for their educational futures. In high school Sadaf performed at the Oasis Open House in 2000, reciting poetry for Skin, a National Geographic documentary.

Maddy joined Oasis as a ninth grader and participated in programs like the RISE Life Skills Education program and the Leadership Institute. She served as one of Oasis’s first youth staff and helped facilitate RISE programs. Maddy also represented Oasis to funders and at various events in the San Francisco area.

Oasis for Girls

Stories like these are just snapshots of the young women served by the 1997–98 Community Action Grant project, Oasis for Girls. Since its beginnings in a one-bedroom apartment that lacked heat and air conditioning, the organization has made a transformation almost as impressive as that of the local girls it serves. It is now housed in a space that includes offices for staff, meeting rooms, and a lounge complete with a small computer lab and library. Artwork depicting the stories of Oasis girls and photos of all the girls who have found a “family” through the organization decorate the hallway.

Oasis founders Jill Pfeiffer and Ly Nguyen met in 1997 while working as a program coordinator and a case manager, respectively, at the South of Market Teen Center. The two women quickly recognized that the center’s programming, which included basketball nights and gang prevention, was primarily aimed at young men, so Jill and Ly began hosting weekly “art nights” for girls. “When the program gained such popularity, we knew that more than just Fridays were needed, and the idea for Oasis was born,” explains Jill.

Oasis for Girls

To get their project started, Jill and Ly wrote their first-ever proposal for an AAUW grant. Opening with “seed money” from the grant, the center encompassed four primary areas: arts, leadership, technology, and educational programming. “Those four areas have continued to grow and flourish over the years into innovative programming with solid outcomes and goals,” says Jill. One particularly successful program, RISE Life Skills Education Program, supports healthy choices for young women through workshops about self-esteem, body image, career planning, mental health, nutrition, and more.

Oasis for Girls

Oasis recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and the programming that originally served the South of Market area in San Francisco now serves young women throughout the Bay Area. Oasis’s growth as an organization goes hand in hand with the transformation of the girls the center serves. Rachel Paras, executive director of Oasis, can attest firsthand to the “growth and leadership of several Oasis alumni” in her four years at the center. For example, Sadaf, who started with Oasis as a middle school student and was active with Oasis for five years, went on to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. In her time with Oasis, Maddy—who will graduate from high school this year and plans to attend the City College of San Francisco—has represented youth voices throughout the city.