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RAMA Blueprints

RAMA Blueprints

Written by: 5 Sisters Audio Garden
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RAMA Blueprints is about the legacy of San Francisco's Real Alternatives Program (RAP), a revolutionary youth service organization who practiced Self-Determination and empowered their generation, community and city. In 1969, Jim Queen co-founded Real Alternatives Program or RAP, a youth advocacy agency with an emphasis on community leadership development for and by San Francisco youth. Since the agency’s opening, they developed generations of community leaders. But eventually the agency closed its doors in 1999. In the 80’s, RAP created a single classroom school, which eventually evolved into a 4 year high school program. We follow the story of RAP's development as an organization and their legacy as a leader in youth advocacy, leadership development and alternatives to youth incarceration.. We follow the stories of former RAP staff, students and teens from that time, and community leaders who helped shape the tenor and fauna of San Francisco’s Mission District social service agencies. We also include eXtras to help with a deeper understanding through one-on-one interviews, commentary or our live group discussions series, Tres Generacíones/3 Voices recorded at SF's BRAVA! Women For the Arts. RAMA is produced, in partnership with or sponsored by CARECEN SF, Instituto Familiar de La Raza, Pacific Islander Resource Hut, United Playaz, San Francisco Foundation and private individual donors. The series is written, edited and produced by Darren J. de Leon and Host Socorro Gamboa. And remember "To Listen is to Heal." All Power to the People!Copyright 2026 5 Sisters Audio Garden Hygiene & Healthy Living Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Spirituality World
Episodes
  • Tres Generacíones/Three Voices: Past, Present, and Future - The Mission District's Cultural Artivism and Resistance

    Tres Generacíones/Three Voices: Past, Present, and Future - The Mission District's Cultural Artivism and Resistance
    Aug 8 2026
    RAMA Blueprints presents their latest Tres Generacíones/3 Voices live podcast Past, Present, and Future - The Mission District's Cultural Artivism and Resistencía on Thursday, August 27 at 6:30 PM at the Brava Women for the Arts' Cabaret in San Francisco's Mission District.Framed as a “living archive” of Mission District artivism, the program traces key roots from the 1968 Third World Strike and the 1969 Los Siete de La Raza trial through institutions like Galería de la Raza, Mission Cultural Center, Mission Grafica, Precita Eyes, and BRAVA, plus mural, media, danza, music, and theater lineages. Panelists Alejandro Murguía, José Carrasco, and Naima Blanco Norberg connect these histories to their own work—from building cultural centers and anti-war organizing that led to Loco Bloco, to confronting tech-driven gentrification and designing community space. Audience Q&A addresses youth gathering spaces, and closing reflections urge continued relationship-building, artistic action, and resilience.Featured Panelists:Alejandro Murguía (Author & San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus)Jose Carrasco (Co-Founder of Loco Bloco)Naima Blanco Norberg (Teacher, designer, and visionary emerging leader.)This live production brings together community elders, cultural workers, and emerging leaders to reflect on the historic and ongoing cultural arts movement within San Francisco's Mission District. Anchored in the spirit of "Past, Present, and Future," the evening explores how historical artivism and community-based organizations laid the groundwork for today's grassroots movements, non-profit sustainability, and cultural preservation efforts.Join us for a lively intergenerational dialogue among local movement leaders, artists, and organizers who have navigated treacherous fiscal challenges, shifting political climates, and complex external pressures. Bios of PanelistsAlejandro Murguia is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His non-fiction book The Medicine of Memory highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and the first director of The Mission Cultural Center. He was a founder of The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and co-editor of Volcán: Poetry From Central America. Currently he is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of the short story “The Other Barrio” which first appeared in the anthology San Francisco Noir and recently filmed in the street of the Mission District. In poetry he has published Spare Poems, and this year a new collection Native Tongue. He is the Sixth San Francisco Poet Laureate and the first Latino poet to hold the position.Jose Carrasco is a co-founder and original Executive Director of Loco Bloco. He has devoted over 30 years to serving Brown and Black youth and their families through cultural arts and wellness programs. Before returning to lead Loco Bloco in 2020, Jose also served in leadership positions at community serving organizations around the Bay - Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, Be the Change Consulting, Central American Resource Center and Youth in Arts.Naima Blanco NorbergNaima Blanco-Norberg is a designer, artist / muralist, ceremonial runner / dancer and community organizer. Born and raised in Frisco to a revolutionary multiethnic family. Her work centers on community based design, architecture, and empowering intergenerational spaces through culture and arts. She's grown up in and has worked with many local community organizations such as PODER, Loco Bloco, Bicis del Pueblo, Precita Eyes, Danza Xitlali, Excelsior Syndicate and Lovers Lane on affordable housing, environmental justice, and latine / indigenous sovereignty. Naima is an Architecture + Design teaching artist at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and a design fellow at Native Roots Network. She graduated in 2025 from Yale University with a Bachelors in Architecture. RAMA BLUEPRINTSFounded in 2021, RAMA Blueprints is the premier podcast documenting the history of the Real Alternatives Program (RAP) in San Francisco (1967–2003) and its ongoing impact on community empowerment. Please join us to celebrate RAP’s historical legacy project and participate in this vital community gathering.Please consider donating to the RAMA Blueprints podcast by visiting CARECENSF.org. This episode was made possible through a California Arts Council Impact Grant.This episode was written, produced and edited by Darren J. de Leon and Socorro Gamboa.
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • eXtra Commentary: Dr. Sal Nuñez

    eXtra Commentary: Dr. Sal Nuñez
    Jun 27 2026

    We present an eXtra commentary from Dr. Salvador “Sal” Nuñez on the 5/28/26 live RAMA Blueprints episode “Nuestra Sagrada Salud: Community Mental Health,” recorded at Brava Women for the Arts in San Francisco’s Mission District. Dr. Nuñez, a licensed psychologist and founding director of City College of San Francisco’s Community Mental Health Certificate Program, praises the panel’s focus on La Cultura Cura, and criticizes the governmental systems that overlook culture as healing. He contrasts collectivistic, culturally grounded practices—ceremony, prayer, medicinas and altares—with Eurocentric individualism, shares formative teachings from Puerto Rico, and describes creating a long-running drumming circle at Instituto Familiar de La Raza. Discussing major public health budget cuts, he emphasizes social activism, solidarity, and community support, and offers guidance for new providers on emotional regulation, networks, self-care, leadership, policy awareness, and staying connected to elders and ancestral practices. Dr. Nuñez is interviewed by host Socorro Gamboa.

    Please consider donating to the RAMA Blueprints podcast by visiting CARECENSF.org. This episode was made possible through a California Arts Council Impact Grant.

    This episode is produced, written and edited by Darren J. de Leon and Socorro Gamboa.
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    34 mins
  • Tres Generacíones/Three Voices: Nuestra Sagrada Salud/Community Mental Health

    Tres Generacíones/Three Voices: Nuestra Sagrada Salud/Community Mental Health
    May 20 2026

    RAMA Blueprints hosts its 6th episode of their live series "Tres Generaciones/Three Voices.” The episode titled “Nuestro Sagrado Salud - Community Mental Health" will take place on Thursday, May 28th at 7:00pm at Brava Theater's Cabaret.

    Supported by a Project Impact Grant from the California Arts Council and sponsored by BRAVA for Women in the Arts, this live event brings together three generations of community leaders, healers, and advocates. Our discussion will focus on the evolution and intersection of community mental health, centering on the sacred nature of wellness within our collective experience. We will explore how cultural roots, spiritual health, and community promising practices and support systems act as vital pillars for our overall well-being, and how reclaiming these roots serves as a form of healing and resistance to traditional clinical models.

    Our panelists are:

    Michelle Alvarez-Campos, LCSW is a bilingual and multicultural licensed clinical social worker and clinical consultant with Instituto Familiar de la Raza.

    Metzi Henriquez, M.A., MFTI who holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology and has been a practicing therapist for over 15 years for immigrant youth and families in San Francisco.

    Dra. Lizbett Calleros, MSW, PPSC, EdD who serves as a therapist and school social worker in San Francisco Unified School District.

    Click here for FREE Tickets, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tres-generacionesthree-voices-6-community-mental-health-tickets-1990049162616?aff=oddtdtcreator

    or listen live here:

    https://www.facebook.com/events/1595022105963619/
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    1 hr and 31 mins
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