Wisdom Team
Aya Shabu
Guardian of Flow
Aya leads our work to celebrate our cultural strengths and beauty. Her work focuses on preparing Black parents to shape programming, art, and events to create Black Genius classrooms in non-traditional education spaces. She designs amazing activities to shift minds and senses when a change in approach is necessary. Oh, and she's a professional performing artist.
Lashika Hester
Process Master
Lashika makes the operations magic happen at VOW. She makes sure all our stuff, tech, data, and info has a place. She gets excited about making sure everybody on the team has all that they need to fully leverage their genius. Lashika is a proud North Carolinian, dog mom, and former educator.
Nadiah Porter
Parent Amplifier
Nadiah builds community with VOW parents new & old. She keeps the conversation going with parents on line, in the comments section and in person. Nadiah a parent of two is passionate about parent advocacy and connection. She's got her eyes and ears wide open looking for the next group of parents who want to become apart of the village!
Beth Leigh
Village Miner
Beth leads the VOW's fundraising and stewardship efforts. She enthusiastically develops and strengthens partnerships with VOW’s Team Members, Board members, and Donors. Personally, Beth is passionate about healing and advocacy; engaging via the arts. When she isn’t painting, she is gardening with her dog. She looks forward to pollinating, pruning and blooming with VOW!
Arssante Malone
De Alkhemist
As an educator, instructional coach, and school leader with international experience, Arssante Malone successfully utilized culturally relevant pedagogy, critical frameworks, and socio-emotional competencies that created the ideal learning environments for students to thrive in; especially Black students. As the Associate Director of Instructional Liberation Arssante leverages that experience to lead VOW’s educational advocacy and school transformation work by equipping parents, educators, and school district leaders with the necessary tools and frameworks grounded in liberatory methods to manifest culturally affirming learning environment that drive socio-emotional and academic outcomes for all learners.
Arssante will be leading our efforts to support schools in creating more culturally affirming learning environments for Black learners!
Arssante will be leading our efforts to support schools in creating more culturally affirming learning environments for Black learners!
Roxann Dixon
Village Gardener
Roxann helps educators and parents navigate the academic journey from a child's perspective. As a advocate, she provides support and guidance for every child to reach their goals.
Leslie Gartrell
Culture Cultivator
Leslie builds and cultivates the work environment at VOW, ensuring that the culture, structures, and policies align with our values. As a leader of internal culture, she is energized by the possibilities that come with curating a liberatory space for the work to take place.
Aeran Baskin
Village Storyteller
A lover of language and strategy, Aeran leads communications and storytelling at Village of Wisdom. Drawing on her experience as a lawyer, fundraiser, and poet, Aeran helps Village of Wisdom to use stories as the lyrics for a new world brimming with Black parent love and wisdom. When she isn’t in a Google Doc, Aeran wanders the world to discover new outdoor markets, lifts heavy things, and draws mythical portraits.
Omari Akil
Mechanization Maven
Omari manages VOWs digital tool design and development processes. He works to ensure the technological resources provided to black families offer more opportunities than obstacles. Omari is equipped with a breadth of user experience knowledge and a multidisciplinary creative spirit, which he utilizes to discover more effective software solutions.
Board of Directors
Brittany Bennett
Chair
Gerald Harris
Secretary
Randi Towns
Treasurer
Leah Adeniji
Director
Rashida James
Director
Cornell Watson
Director
Malika Graham-Bailey
Director