Green For All Fellows - Class 4
Meet the Green For All Academy Fellow Candidates, Fourth Class, the most diverse group of green leaders we have ever worked with. The Academy identifies and cultivates local leaders from communities across the nation, helping them apply their skills and resources to organize for change in their cities.
Carmen Llanes — Austin, TX
Carmen Dolores Llanes is a community organizer and native of Austin, TX. She has worked with a variety of organizations and coalitions citywide and across the country, including People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER), Marathon Kids, Sustainable Food Center, Southwest Key Programs, Texans United For Families (TUFF), Urban Roots, Austin Fair Trade Coalition, the Southwest Network for Environmental & Economic Justice (SNEEJ), and Alma de Mujer Center for Social Change. Carmen has participated in collaborative struggles and victories in Environmental Justice, Affordable Housing, Immigrant Rights, Neighborhood Development, Food Access, Public Education, Police-Community Relations, Voter Empowerment, and Youth Leadership Development. She graduated A.B. Environmental Studies in 2007 from the University of Chicago, focusing on agricultural and industrial trade policies in the U.S. and Mexico and their immense influence on migration, food production, and the environment. Carmen currently serves on Board of Trustees for Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, an Austin-based organization committed to the development and support of green worker cooperatives. She believes that intergenerational organizing and strong community are some of the most powerful tools for creating real social change.
Charles McClean — Detroit, MI
Charles McClean has over 15 years experience in the architectural and engineering industries and about 5 years as an educator at the high school and community college levels. During the past 10 years as an architect, he was able to study and become a part of the green movement. As the economy turned and greening efforts became more prevalent, he was fortunate enough to be a part of the Detroit City Council Green Task Force. From there, he embarked on a quest to make sustainable living a reality for his community. Recently, blighted vacant lots and economic distress have compelled him to venture into urban agriculture. His is currently engaging the community to clean and clear blighted vacant lots for beautiful community gardens and farms. These efforts not only reduce our carbon footprint, but serves as a community educational tool. Charles McClean prides himself on setting goals, accomplishing them, using innovative hands-on education techniques to promote a sustainable life for his family and community.
Clarke Gocker — Buffalo, NY
Clarke Gocker is a native of Rochester, NY. He has spent most of his adult life acquiring the tools of a critical sociological perspective at universities in Western New York and Canada. Currently he is pursuing a PhD in sociology from the University at Buffalo while also working full-time as a project manager and workforce organizer at PUSH Buffalo, a grassroots anti-poverty, jobs and housing justice organization.
Cobi Jackson — Portland, OR
Cobi serves as a National Engagement Officer for One Economy Corporation, a global non-profit whose mission is to ensure that every person, regardless of income and location, can maximize the power of technology to improve the quality of his or her life and enter the economic mainstream. As an Engagement Officer, her role is about leveraging existing partnerships and creating new opportunities with the intent of programmatic and financial sustainability within low-income communities. She is responsible for the management of all internal and external programs that are supported by One Economy in the Western region. Specific areas of focus include tribal opportunities, digital literacy for youth, technology-based Green Living initiatives for underserved communities, and high level fundraising. Cobi has an extensive background in corporate and agency marketing that includes web and print design, program design and content writing, as well as event planning and promotions. She has a BS in both English and Journalism with an emphasis in Public Relations from the University of Oregon, and is currently pursuing her MBA.
Dana Solet — Baton Rouge, LA
Dana Solet is a United Houma Nation citizen from Dulac, Louisiana. She spends the majority of her time during the summer working with tribal youth at leadership trainings and camps. She enjoys spending time with the youth because she understands and recognizes they are the future leaders of the United Houma Nation. With the guidance of trainers People’s Production House and Ms. Foundation for Women, Dana was trained to work with digital recorders and editing software. She started the United Houma Nation Youth Media Team during the summer of 2008, where she coordinates exchanges with tribal youth and tribal elders to gather stories for a digital historical archive database. Dana is currently a Campaign Manager for Bayou Healers, a non-profit organization advocating social justice, human rights and cultural preservation for indigenous communities of Southeast Louisiana. She recognizes the environmental issues that are affecting her people of the United Houma Nation and would like to bring more awareness to others about these issues to create a coalition of advocates for her tribal communities. Dana is also a senior at Louisiana State University where her studies are concentrated in sociology, communication studies and business administration.
Danielle DeRuiter-Williams — Los Angeles, CA
Originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Danielle has lived in LA for about three years, earning dual Master’s Degrees in Urban Planning and Afro-American Studies. She first became interested in economic development for communities of color while completing her senior thesis in undergrad on the urban crisis in Detroit. She saw the damage done and was interested in discovering a way for urban communities to re-imagine their place in “the new economy.” After further exploration she’s become an advocate of Food Justice and Urban Agriculture. She is currently working as an intern with an organization based in Inglewood, CA that focuses on advancing Food Justice through youth and community empowerment. She is also conducting research on the complexity of inter-racial coalition building in the Food Justice movement and how it is imperative to push national policy forward in that area.
Dave Room — Oakland, CA
Dave's most important identifier is Melia's Papa. In his first job after graduating with Bachelors and Masters degrees in engineering from Stanford University, Dave Room found himself working for a management consulting firm helping polluters minimize the cost of complying with regulations. Disillusioned, he trained himself to be an early Java developer and over the ensuing years, worked on a number of start-up Internet firms. After the birth of his daughter Melia, Dave wanted to do whatever he could to pass on a healthy planet to Melia and future generations. After a conference, he contacted one of the speakers and ended up becoming a founding board member of Post Carbon Institute and playing a key role in donor cultivation, outreach, and engagement with local groups. While there, he initiated a project to build community resilience in the Bay Area, which was spun off into Bay Localize, a public benefit organization that inspires and supports Bay Area residents in building resilient communities. As Clean Energy Director of Bay Localize, Dave coordinates the Local Clean Energy Alliance. Dave recently joined the boards of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO-USA) and Transition US to help them engage with diverse communities. In August 2010, Dave was recognized by the California Senate for his work in defeating Prop 16 which included producing a series of short films and a social media campaign. Dave is founder of Take Back the Mic Bay Area, which inspires, supports, and provides a platform for communities to tell their own stories. He is currently developing a social enterprise collaborative, BALANCE. On stage as Melia's Papa, Dave uses storytelling and solo performance theater to awaken and activate mainstream audiences, people of color, and youth. His personal mission is to raise the voices of the most impacted communities and to co-create with them a transformative narrative that provides a viable, inspiring pathway to an ecologically just world.
Ietef Vita — Denver, CO
Ietef Vita is a Denver, Colorado native, hailing from the historic Five Points. He has been a long time community activist due to an early awareness of inequity in his neighborhood. At age 25, Ietef Hotep Vita is DJ C.A.V.E.M. (Communicating Awareness Victoriously Educating the Masses) Moetavation, an internationally known HipHop artist, writer/producer, deejay, HipHop Yogi, Afro-Latin percussionist, producer, father, midwife, and environmental and youth advocate. He is an Eco-Cultivator/Educator, sharing his knowledge with various age groups in organic gardening, veganism, holistic health, sustainability, consumption and HipHop culture with Denver's Blue and Yellow Logic, The GrowHaus, Youthbiz and Detroit-based non-profit Urban Farming. Due to this workshop series entitled "Going Green, Living Bling: Redefining the Image of Wealth", he was awarded a Green For All Fellowship in 2010. This November he will be traveling to Nairobi, Kenya for an exchange around Food Justice as a Bold Food Fellow through the Bold Leaders organization. Ietef "DJ CAVEM" Vita is an "O.G." - Organic Gardener. He has built and maintained urban gardens in food deserts across the city in which he engages the community; teaching them how to grow food, build compost, and harvest. Ietef has also created panels around this work for the Denver Green Festival, the Biennial of the Americas, the San Francisco Green Festival, and PowerShift in Washington, DC. Vita is the founder of the Brown Suga Youth Festival, an annual event that brings together holistic healers, educators, artists and the youth for presentations, discussions and networking. As DJ CAVEM he has performed in Burkina Faso, West Africa, Paris, London, and Amsterdam. He is a recording activist and has worked with several major artists such as Digable Planets, Dead Prez and KRS-ONE and has shared the stage with Musiq Soulchild, Les Nubians, and Gil Scott Heron to name a few. His fourth album "The Teacher's Lounge" released July 2010. The single, "Wheat Grass", speaks on youth and sustainability and placed him second in Green For All's, 2010 Dream Reborn art contest. Straight out the garden, Ietef "DJ CAVEM" Vita is "teachin' HIP HOP history and how to grow greens" and not the ones you roll. He is HIP HOP: Higher Inner Peace, Helping Other People. His new project entitled "The Produce Section" can be found here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-teachers-lounge/id386101211 PEACE.
Jameelah Muhammad — New York, NY
Jameelah Muhammad is a native of Metro-Detroit Michigan, where she graduated from Southfield Public Schools and continued her education at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She majored in Biology and Environmental Health, with a specialization in Resource Management. She currently is an Organizer at New York Jobs with Justice and Urban Agenda working on the Green Collar Jobs and Good Food, Good Jobs Campaigns. She is a certified ROOTS of Success Environmental Literacy Instructor. This fall she began work on her Masters (M.A.) in Labor Relations at the City University of New York in partnership with Cornell University Institute of Labor Relations. Her work is a reflection of her diverse experiences related to racial, religious, and gender discrimination, being exposed to different socioeconomic environments, and overcoming personal adversity in order to achieve a deep appreciation for life and sense of immense responsibility to humanity and mother nature. Some of her more recent accomplishments include being a co-founder of the Environmental Coalition at Oakland University and successfully launching a comprehensive campus wide recycling program. She has launched several successful Get Out the Vote Campaigns/Voter Registration and Mobilization Drives and organized a successful campaign to address access and affordability to Higher Education, which resulted in students at her university receiving a partial tuition refund. She was honored as Trainer of the Year for the United States Student Association for her Electoral Action Trainings, including training for the PowerVote Campaign that was presented to the Sierra Student Coalition. This past April, Jameelah joined over 30,000 people in Cochabamba, Bolivia for the People's World Conference on Climate Change. She was a part of a NY delegation, by invitation of the Bolivian Ambassador to the U.N., and took part in the creation and negotiations of the People's Agreement. She continues to advocate for environmental justice at an international level and was recently accepted into Oxfam International's Youth Partnership Program, where she will go to India later this year to meet other young people around the world who work on sustainability issues in their communities. She hopes to continue teaching environmental literacy, environmental justice, and green jobs/green career preparation for young adults. She is committed to empowering people in her community and helping people see the interconnectedness of the environment, economy, and social justice.
Joseph Adamji — Minneapolis, MN
Originally from Evanston IL, Joseph Adamji has been living in the Twin Cities for the last 6 years. Growing up in a diverse community - both racially and economically - and being from a multicultural family, social justice has been a strong part of his frame of thinking since he can remember. Still, feeling uncertain that attempts at creating racial equity would have a far enough reach, Joseph did not feel fully inspired to get involved in grassroots work until seeing Majora Carter speak. Her presentation brought to light the work being done to restructure our economy and create access to opportunities. Since getting involved, Joseph Adamji has worked to bring youth into this movement and build more leaders, working with two crews of high school students from the inner city. In empowering them to rethink their communities’ as well as their own relationship to power, and using music and art to do so, his students won Green For All's Dream Reborn Story Contest, which, with the help of a professional music video, will support them to spark dialogue with their peers and in their neighborhoods and in this way, bring more people into this movement.
Kymone Tecumseh Freeman — Washington, D.C.
Papi Kymone Freeman (guerrilla artist) is the director of the National Black LUV Festival recognized as a Washington, D.C. Mayor's Art Award Finalist for Excellence in Service to the Arts in 2006 and received a Mayoral Proclamation in 2007. est. 1997 NBLF has since become the largest annual AIDS mobilization in WDC. Freeman has appeared along side Mark Twain and Harriet Tubman in newspapers and subway cars throughout WDC metro area as a Clinical AIDS Vaccine Trial Participant and NIH “Everyday Heroes” Ad Campaign Model to bring attention to this pandemic. Freeman is a founding board member for Words Beats & Life, a Hip Hop Non-Profit and co-founder of Bum Rush the Boards the largest annual youth chess competition in WDC. He is the subject of one chapter of the book Beat of A Different Drum: The Untold Stories of African Americans Forging Their Own Paths in Work and Life (Hyperion). He has authored a collection of poetry entitled Blood.Sweat.Tears. His dedication to art and activism lead him to accept the position of NYC spokesperson and official poet of the anti-war independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader during his campaign in '04. A scholarship received from American Friends Service Committee to spend the summer in Nairobi, Kenya for an international leadership conference resulted in him returning to the states as a playwright. He received the 22nd Annual Larry Neal Award for Drama for the successful play Prison Poetry that has appeared at the Historic Lincoln Theatre and Source Theatre during the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, THEARC Theatre, Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Facility and several college campuses where his work has been included in the Black History curriculum of Maryland’s Easternshore. He has conducted production workshops at the National Black Theatre Festival and Institute of Policy Studies. His second stageplay was commissioned by Jive Recording Artist Raheem DeVaughn entitled the Love Experience. He has studied under the legendary independent filmmakers Haile Gerima, Raoul Peck and Sam Greenlee. Freeman’s second screenplay Nineveh: a conflict over water a futuristic drama that paints a post-oil depleted world has been produced as a short film and is pursuing a feature length release. He is the Vice President of Long Engineering PC, a full service green heating, cooling, ventilation, and solar company for commercial and residential customers in the D.C metro area.
Michael McKechnie — Berkeley Springs, WV
Mike McKechnie owns Mountain View Solar & Wind, a renewable energy company located in historic Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Mike is passionate about bringing solar to Southern WV using an on-the-job training model that he has proven in the Eastern Panhandle of WV – he utilizes under-employed/un-employed contractors and trains them on-site for gainful employment in the solar jobs sector. In 2008 Mike was awarded the Green Entrepreneur of the Year award from the West Virginia Environmental Council. Mike, his wife Faith, and their daughter Sofia reside in Berkeley Springs in a home that utilizes a Velux solar hot water heating system, a solar electric system and a Skystream 3.7 wind generator. He has spoken at building association meetings, environmental fairs, community teaching institutes, local schools, Shepherd University, the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV, Oblebay Institute in Wheeling, WV and local and state level government meetings. Mike's energy and enthusiasm are contagious as he engages the audience to be part of the energy solution that our country needs.
Sandra MyungJae Yu — Detroit, MI
Sandra grew up in Southeast Michigan, then earned her SB and Masters in City Planning from MIT and taught high school for one year in Mexico before returning to the area to join Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice as the Build Up Detroit Program Manager. Her first encounter with environmental justice was in an international context, but since starting at DWEJ, she have come to understand how important a role EJ plays in major US cities. She strongly believes that the perceived trade-off between the economy and the environment is a false dichotomy, and is proud to be a part of the community creating sustainable solutions in Detroit through green workforce development (among other things). Sandra is too pragmatic to be called an idealist, and too idealistic to be called a pragmatist. Her approach is systems-based and detail-oriented, and she loves to create connections across people, programs, groups, agencies and bodies of work.
Tania Pulido — Richmond, CA
Tania went from at "risk youth" to community activist and organizer. Currently working as Program Coordinator with Urban Tilth, a Richmond non-profit manifesting a more sustainable, healthy and just food system. When she's not in the garden, Tania is working with Youth Movement Records and the RYSE Center, as a Media and Arts assistant program coordinator. In April of 2010, she participated with nearly 30 other activist and organizers representing various grassroots, base-building organizations from throughout California, in a two-week Liberation Permaculture Design Course, hosted by Movement Generation at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. At the largest youth led Eco-Music Festival in the Nation, she was awarded with the Youth Champion Award for her environmental activism. Conscious Youth Media Crew, located in San Francisco nominated her one of three youth to premier on the "Toxic Triangle" documentary. In January of 2010, the City of Richmond presented her with the Martin Luther King Richmond Community Leadership and Service Award, she one of two chosen by the Ryse Center. Tania is currently in college pursuing her B.A in Environmental Studies and Media.
Tanya Fields — South Bronx, NY
Tanya Fields is a young, budding activist and social entrepreneur located in the South Bronx. She became involved in social and environmental activism out of necessity. Growing up in Harlem in the 80’s and 90’s, she was bussed to school in more affluent neighborhoods as her parents wanted to give me the opportunity that was not available in her own neighborhood. As Tanya went on and furthered her education, she became more cognizant of the injustices happening around her both locally and nationally. She started to feel this constant agitation, a burning in the pit of her belly that she couldn’t extinguish. She needed to help and didn’t know how. This was further catalyzed as Tanya found myself living in one of the poorest communities in the country, raising a baby and putting herself through school. Somehow fate put Tanya in touch with Mothers on the Move’s environmental justice committee where her passion quickly propelled her forward and she was identified as a potential EJ activist and organizer. Within one short year, she had several press quotes, radio interviews and press conferences locally and nationally under her belt. After a year with Mothers on the Move, she became the Outreach Coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx where she continued to be identified and validated as an effective local resource and continued to grow as an advocate for South Bronx residents and for similar communities nationally. But her real passion was realized 3 years ago when she incorporated BLK GRL, a burgeoning media company that seeks to unite women of the Diaspora through media, entertainment and community projects. She recently unveiled her socially conscious t-shirt line BLK and maintains a blog called Brown Girl Swagger. Through her work, Tanya has realized there is a need for tangible and EFFECTIVE action. This gave birth to The BLK Projek a (soon to be) 501(c)3 that looks to enrich the lives of women of color through community programming. Tanya hopes to facilitate the ushering in of a new democratic system that gives the power back to the communities, promotes sustainability, equality and easy access of resources for struggling hoods.
Uduak Ntuk — Bakersfield, CA
Uduak Ntuk is an engineer in the Gas and Oil Department at the City of Long Beach. He is a technical professional that believes the economy and the environment are not mutually exclusive. Committed to protecting the environment and promoting sustainability, he has volunteered with the non-profit Alliance for Climate Protection since 2006 where he was personally trained by Nobel Laureate Al Gore to deliver dozens of technical presentations on the science and solutions to Global Warming. In 2008, Uduak was selected as a Startingbloc Fellow for the Institute for Social Innovation at the London Business School where he studied sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship. He now serves on the Board of Directors for Environmental Charter High School and the Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Network Youth Council. He earned his BS in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Entrepreneurship from California State University, Long Beach and MS in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California. Uduak is the father of a 12 year old daughter and drives a hybrid.
Yolanda Contreras — Madera, CA
Yolanda Contreras is the second to the oldest in a family of five siblings. Furthering her education was not easy, but she has persevered. In 2006 she earned her AA in General Studies from Reedley College. Yolanda then majored in Social Work, and obtained a certificate in cross-cultural competency. Her long term goal is to earn a Doctorate in Educational Leadership. In 2008, she completed an internship with Community Action Partnership of Madera County (CAPMC), Victim Services Center, which is an agency that helps victims who have experienced in Domestic Violence, Victim/Witness, and Rape/Sexual Assaults. This experience compelled her to pursue a career in community work. She is currently working for CAPMC, at Madera Community Food Bank (MCFB) as a Hunger Campaign Coordinator. Her duties are to attend and participate in community collaborative meetings, develop food pantries, implement and supervise the 1-800-Finding Food Line, establish a data base system for emergency food referrals, and develop hunger education curriculum as well as a hunger campaign for Madera County. Yolanda is excited to be a part of the Green For All Academy Program and being able to contribute to food justice in her hometown of Madera, CA.
Zoe Hollomon — Buffalo, NY
Zoe is originally from Minnesota but grew up in Buffalo, NY. Zoe developed the youth enterprise, Growing Green Works, at MAP as part of the Growing Green Program in 2006. As part of the youth enterprise she teaches a hands-on business development course and supervises a group of teens to managed the social enterprise. Zoe was formally trained as an Urban Planner at Cornell University and found her love for community organizing in Buffalo while training neighborhood leaders in community planning and organizing. Zoe received an M.S. in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University in 2007. Zoe has a specific interest in cooperative business development, has worked with the Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) in Greenfield, Massachusetts and has developed youth economic education programs in New York City and in Buffalo.
