Category: Uncategorized

Bonnetta Adeeb is the founder and president of STEAM ONWARD Inc. a youth development non-profit organization in Southern Maryland. Ms. Adeeb, now retired from teaching was an educator for 37 years. She taught social studies and Career Research and Work-based Learning, a school-to-work educational program.

The mission of Steam Onward is to increase the number of minority and under-served youth pursuing higher education in STEM related fields, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The “A” in Steam Onward is a reminder that the arts also utilize science and technology.  Steam Onward achieves our mission by providing youth in Charles County and Prince George's County, Maryland with after-school hands-on experiential learning opportunities in  five program areas:

• STEM career explorations,
• Internships in health and law,
• STEM field trips,
• Youth leadership development, and
• STEM action programs

The youth in Steam Onward, the driving force of the organization, refer to themselves as the Young Researchers Community Project (YRCP). Their motto is: We Could Have Cared Less, But We Decided to Care More.  Ms. Adeeb has obtained funding to create community demonstration vegetable, healing and rain gardens, restorations projects, and an orchard on the campus of a local high school in Waldorf, Maryland and at other locations. The purpose of the demonstration gardens is to educate both youth and community residents that gardening and environmental stewardship are both necessary and easy to create. YRCP members demonstrate that community gardens and other gardens can both produce food, and contribute to storm water management.

Three years ago YRCP members developed a Chesapeake Bay regional initiative called “NATURE’S KNIGHTS” to advocate for environmental justice, and promote individual stewardship by using community science tools, and action in the areas of food sustainability and water quality including oyster gardening. They are mobilizing youth, school, church and community based organizations as well as the Partnership for a Healthier in our area to take immediate action to solve these community challenges. Celebrating the 50^th Anniversary of Earth Day, we will launch an Urban Farm and Native Tree Nursery that will be a learning center for citizen science, and gardening and tree planting. It will supply native fruit and nut trees, berries, native plants for restoration projects and healing vegetables and herbs for improving the Wellness and Food Sustainability of the southern Maryland community.  With hundreds of homeless and food insecure citizens our youth are challenging the community to take action.

Coming from an activist minister's family, Bonnetta Adeeb has continued  that heritage of farming and  legacy of community service. She has fought for education that empowers all ethnicities, women, the poor, and underserved.

As the owner of Design Virtue and co-founder of The Urban Studio, Maisie is committed to inclusive placemaking with people and plants. Maisie works with mission focused organizations to create greener and more equitable cities. She brings decades of award-winning leadership to her projects and pays obsessive attention to the work to deliver high quality outcomes. She is currently working with clients to create a ladder to employment that will yield full time urban forestry careers and diversify the urban forestry workforce. As a 2018 Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellow for Innovation and Leadership, Maisie is using film to explore what landscapes need to be to feel welcoming for all people.

Maisie is an ISA Certified Arborist, with Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Morgan State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Afro American studies from Howard University.

Jabari Exum is a hip hop artist, percussionist in the West African/Latin tradition, actor and dancer. He has toured with Grammy Award-winning Rap Artist and Songwriter Common and was a drummer and choreographer for the phenomenal The Black Panther movie.

Since 1997, Jabari has also been a pioneering artist in a movement called, “Hip Hop Theater.”  Jabari's approach to everything he touches is unique and unconventional because he is able to pull from so many disciplines and gives himself freedom to explore and invent. Jabari has been acting, drumming, and rapping since he was 2 years old and has been blessed with the opportunities to receive guidance from some of the greats across many fields of creative expression.

President and Co- Founder of The Green Scheme, Washington, D.C. native Ronnie Webb (aka Ron Green) stands on the forefront of educating disadvantaged communities on environmental stewardship and community revitalization. From developing and implementing USDA food system projects to consulting on behalf of businesses and organizations to adopt more sustainable methods, Mr. Webb has more than 10 years of experience in the environmental sector.

After graduating from North Carolina A&T State University with a B.S. in Agricultural Economics, Mr. Webb became a certified green consultant while serving as an intern for D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Following his internship, Mr. Webb was offered a fellowship with the Hip Hop Caucus Education fund, an opportunity that helped him shape a platform in the environmental movement on the east coast with a focus on Washington, D.C. and Greensboro, N.C.

The Green Scheme’s founding was based on Webb’s realization of the lack of environmental awareness that existed in many communities. It is a non-profit organization designed to educate people of diverse cultural backgrounds about their role in the environmental movement. Ever since, Green Scheme has been up and running under the leadership of Mr. Webb who is just getting started. Mr. Webb has recently become a senior fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program, which is a national network of environmental leaders.

The Green Scheme has been active in the DC area for over two years. Positively affecting the lives of DC residents through urban agriculture and workforce development, The Green Scheme has creatively carved itself into the fabric of wards 7 & 8 using its community centered identity to plant gardens in the core of some of the most barren food desserts in the city.

Webb recognized the healthy food shortages in the poorest areas of Washington DC and decided a change needed to occur. The Green Scheme has created stronger communities and healthier families with its dedicated approach to wellness and education.

Dr. Karen Wilson-Ama’Echefu is a Harlem native who engages in public speaking. Hmmm. Public speaking? More like public humming, singing, skipping, dancing, tripping, questioning, challenging, inspiring, inciting, chuckling, telling, quelling, woofing, hoofing, winkling, twinkling, traveling,  messin' 'round, tweeting, elucidating, howling, equivocating, trilling, thrilling, pontificating, poetry-making, risk-taking, reporting, cavorting, and telling the truth as  she understands it to be.

Karen also sings music across the historical spectrum of the African Diaspora in the United States including spirituals, calls, jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.  She curated, wrote and premiered, “A Tribute to Blueswomen:  Beauty and the Blues” with her group, Blue Wave – New York.  In collaboration with her musical director Stephen Vaughan, she developed a new genre called Story Cabaret for Blue Wave West, presenting original, traditional and contemporary stories all wrapped up in jazz, blues and singable tunes. Dr. Wilson-Ama’ Echefu has traveled and performed with Pete Seeger and her performance of Paul Laurence Dunbar's "The Party" was broadcast on PBS as part of their "Favorite Poem Project."

She was a featured presenter at the 2010 Blues and Spirit Symposium alongside legendary Hip Hop Artist Chuck D, and other notable music and history giants, and has spoken and presented on the intellectual and cultural life in the African American Slave Quarter Community on college campuses across the United States.  Dr. Wilson-Ama’ Echefu's research interests include African cultural and religious history, eighteenth and nineteenth-century enslavement in the United States, leadership and strategy in slave quarter communities, and the philosophies and theologies of Africans and their descendants in the Western Hemisphere as identified through their song, story and dance. Her scholarship identifies African intellectual and cultural presence in North America as providing evidence for continuities, discontinuities and transformations of African Diasporic culture in the United States and considers the West African Diasporic Blues Complex as a marker for African cultural presence in the Western Hemisphere.  She also writes on histori-cultural presence of African American women, which includes their beautiful blues.

Fred Tutman is a grassroots community advocate for clean water in Maryland’s longest and deepest intrastate waterway. He holds the title of Patuxent Riverkeeper, an organization that he founded in 2004. He is among the longest-serving riverkeepers in the Chesapeake region and the only African-American riverkeeper in the United States.

Fred also lives and works on an active farm located near the Patuxent that has been his family’s ancestral home for nearly a century. Prior to riverkeeping, he spent nearly three decades as a media producer and consultant on telecommunications assignments across the globe, including a long stint working with and advising traditional healers in West Africa and covering the Falklands conflict in Argentina for the BBC.

After a late-life sojourn into law school, Fred now teaches an adjunct course in Environmental Law and Policy at historic St. Mary’s College of MD. When not exploring the Patuxent River by kayak, he performs trail maintenance on the Appalachian TraiI, farms and blacksmiths in his spare time.

Fred also serves on a variety of Boards, Task Forces and Commissions related to the work of protecting the Patuxent and the natural environment. Among them, Fred serves on the Board of the Environmental Integrity Project, as a Governor appointed Commissioner on the State’s Patuxent River Commission and on the Board of Waterkeeper Alliance, the international group that licenses Waterkeepers. He is the recipient of numerous regional and state awards for his various environmental works on behalf of communities.

Falecia Stuckey is Executive Board Member of Velo City Riders Cycling Club, a Maryland based
cycling club. Falecia, a cyclist and triathlete, started this Greater Baltimore Area based club in
2017 with 4 other outdoor enthusiasts. Active members enjoy riding together year round in a
relaxed and friendly group atmosphere. Our rides range from short, easy trips for beginners, to
moderately-paced tours with snack breaks, to fast, challenging rides for the more competitive
minded. Volunteer club members organize group rides, leaving from various locations
throughout Maryland, DC and Virginia. Velo City Riders promote fun, fitness, and enjoyment of
DMV area parks, trails and outdoor cycling routes while encouraging membership regardless of
race creed or skill level to engage in enjoyment of the natural environment.

Hampton Roads native and mother, BeKura W. Shabazz Branch has more than decade of grassroots advocacy and activism in the areas of policy, housing, and criminal and economic justice work. Recently, she was recruited to become a professional activist as Virginia's lead for federal legislation on climate change and sea level rise with Virginia Conservation Network. Since leaving that role, she has been vigorously fighting against oppressive and systemic injustices against African Americans alongside all of her other areas of interest.

She is currently the Social Justice and Health Disparities committee chairwoman of the Va. Green New Deal; Chesterfield NAACP Criminal Justice committee chair; and serves on the Internal Policy Committee of the Va Environmental Justice Collaborative.

BeKura is the Founder and President of First Alliance Consulting LLC. and The Criminal Injustice Reform Network. She also founded Mothers Against Mandatory Minimums and Legal Advocates of Virginia where she is currently a legal advocate and certified mediator for families affected by the judicial system.

Dawone Robinson is Eastern Regional Director for Energy Affordability for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In this role, he focuses on promoting increased access to energy efficiency and renewable energy resources for multifamily and low-income households. As part of the Energy Efficiency for All project, Dawone helps organize state coalitions and provides educational support for organizations and individuals working on energy efficiency and renewable energy policies.

He has also served as a member of the Virginia Advisory Council on Environmental Justice, an appointment he received from former Governor Terry McAuliffe. In his previous role, Dawone served as Virginia policy director for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an organization focusing on climate change impacts and clean energy solutions in Virginia.

Dawone earned his bachelor's degree from Iowa State University and a J.D. from Drake University Law School.

A passion for agriculture and its people drives Cedric Nwafor, a social entrepreneur and public speaker who has organized, facilitated and spoken at various events across Africa and the US.

Cedric is co-founder of ROOTS Africa, a youth-led organization that combats hunger, poverty and exclusion by connecting students and agricultural experts in the US and Africa. While earning his Bachelor’s degree, he visited farms in Idaho and Maryland as well as in Rwanda, Liberia and Uganda to learn different approaches to farm life and management. Along the way, Cedric became an agricultural evangelist, engaging African youth in civic affairs in both cities and rural communities. He believes engaging young people in agriculture is vital to the future of the African continent and the socio-economic well-being of its peoples.

Cedric previously served as a member of the “Power Team” of the Afrika Youth Movement and coordinator for five committees, and as a Mentor and Advocate for Streetwise Partners, an organization supporting low-income populations. He was a 2016 nominee for the African Youth in Agriculture Award and commencement speaker at his graduation from the University of Maryland's College of Agriculture & Natural Resources with a BA in Agriculture and Resource Economics with a focus on Entrepreneurship.

Cedric, who was born and raised in Cameroon, immigrated to the United States in 2010 and now resides in suburban Washington, D.C.