Shyaam Shabaka
Shyaam Shabaka is the Founder and Executive Director of EcoVillage Farm Learning Center in Richmond, CA. An Arkansas native, Shyaam has been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 40 years, where he has been a leader in promoting sustainable urban agriculture; public health; and environmental, social, and economic justice in low-income communities in the US and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Shyaam worked for the City of Berkeley Health and Human Services Department as Director of the Office of Health Planning, Education, Promotion, and Chronic Diseases for over 28 years. He holds a BS from Texas Western College (University of Texas at El Paso) and a Master of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley.
He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Western Institute of Social Research (WISR). He has also completed certificate course work at Harvard School of Public Health and was a Graduate Fellow at the University of Virginia. He has received numerous outstanding community service awards; served in the Peace Corps in Nigeria, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Food First, International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), California Food and Justice Coalition (CFJC), Consumer Cooperative Federal Credit Union, West County Healthy Eating Active Living Collaborative and Oakland Community Action Partnership to Combat Poverty.