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Consultant, Coach, Author, Lecturer, Climate Change Activist, Personal & Organizational Transformation Specialist:
Dr. Barbara J Love works from a unique set of assumptions about the nature of humans and the process of personal, organizational, and social change which participants find empowering, enabling, and effectively motivating. She has worked with a broad range of organizations throughout the U.S., Europe the Caribbean and Africa.
My life as a first-generation Cameroonian-American with intersecting identities caused me to have a very unique upbringing. Growing up, my family moved around frequently. When I was 11 years old, my father shared that he found a new job, so we would be moving to the Middle East. At that age, I had no idea where or what the Middle East really was. I was stuck in my bubble and I was unwilling to see things from a different perspective. After living in the Middle East for a few years and moving back to the United States, my perspective had completely shifted.
Lead For Liberation, which was originally named Teach To Lead, was founded by our C.E.O., Shayna Renee Hammond, in 2012 as a leadership development program for educational organizations. Through her direct experience as an educator and consulting with major Charter Management Organizations, Shayna noticed some significant gaps in traditional leadership development programs:
Dr. Boateng, a native of California, is a licensed psychotherapist with an emphasis in individual and couples therapy. She has trained at multiple acute and outpatient facilities across the Tennessee Valley, including the North Alabama Regional State Hospital and the Homicide Survivors Recovery Program. After receiving a Master’s in Clinical Psychology from Alabama A&M University, she utilized her training to provide cognitive-behavioral therapy as one of the primary adult therapists in an outpatient clinic.
Tema Okun has spent over 30 years working with and for organizations, schools, and community-based institutions as a trainer, facilitator, teacher, and mentor focused on issues of racial justice and equity. She got her start at Grassroots Leadership with a strong team including James Williams, Cathy Howell, and Kamau Marcharia. For 12 years she worked with the late and beloved Kenneth Jones at ChangeWork and then for another decade with Michelle Johnson and many brilliant colleagues at DismantlingRacismWorks.
Mary R Ferguson began serving as the Racial Justice Consultant for the YWCA of Metro St. Louis in 2016. Her background includes teaching and administrative positions at a number of private and public institutions. Most recently Mary was Diversity and Inclusion Leader at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, after serving as Indiana State University’s Diversity Officer. She has also been on faculty at Webster University and University of Missouri-St. Louis. Mary came to higher education after spending years in preK-12 education, adult and community education, arts education, and English Language learning.
Evangeline is a social change designer with over 20 years of community building and organizational development experience. From Tech companies to food justice coalitions, co-housing communities and universities, she has worked with numerous forward-thinking clients to create systems that are healthier and more just. Evangeline got her start at the New York City Department of Health training social workers and emergency responders to give HIV pre and post-test counseling. She has worked in human resources and spent 5 years as the Director of Diversity & Equity for Duke University’s Office for Institutional Equity.
Zawadi Nyong’o is currently the Director of 7th Sense Communications. As a digital media strategist and a feminist passionate about harnessing the power of social media for social change, Zawadi designs, implements and supports social media strategies that drive conversations, build movements, mobilize citizen action, and galvanize voices for change and development in Africa and around the world. She has used her skills to spearhead and support several successful feminist online campaigns including #WaremboNiYes,#NereasVoice, #TakeBackTheTech, #BustTheMyths, and #1BillionRising. She designed and led Kenya’s landmark #1MilliForJadudi crowdfunding campaign, for which she won a social media award.
Dr. Shemariah J. Arki identifies as an educator, an activist and an organizer. Currently serving as an instructor in the Department of Pan African Studies at Kent State University and the founder of the Ellipsis Institute for Women of Color in the Academy at Case Western Reserve University, she is an intersectional feminist scholar with expert knowledge and skills to develop, implement, facilitate and evaluate curricula that promote institutional equity, communication, and access for traditionally marginalized students and families. Shemariah received her BBA and MEd from the American Intercontinental University and her EdD from Northeastern University.
Aurora Levins Morales is a Boricua Ashkenazi movement elder working through writing, speaking, mentoring and land stewardship to expand our collective ability to imagine and create liberated futures while resting deeply, staying hydrated and staying close to each other. She lives in Maricao, Puerto Rico and is finishing work on her eighth book, Rimonim: Jewish Liberation Liturgy.
