Wanda's Picks

Today is International Women's Day. In its 101st observance, this year, we honor women past, present and future, with an interview with three women: Mama Naomi Diouf, Artistic Director of Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, celebrating the 17th Anniversary of Collage de Africaines, beginning today, March 8-11, 2012, at the Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice Street, Oakland, CA. The second woman is Mama Lola Hanif, founder of Sacred Space Spiritual Support Group, third Thursdays monthly, at 2147 Broadway, Oakland, 4-6 p.m. For the past five years this Sacred Space has hosted over 130 African American women in a spiritually-based, emotionally safe and supportive environment for African American women to gather, network, experience a sense of community. Sacred Space serves as a means of advocating healthy, peaceful African American families. The third woman we feature is one whose voice was formally silenced behind prison walls. Convicted as a child, LaKeisha Burton, born and raised in Comp