Community Food Systems Mentor Profile: Bevelyn Afor Ukah
The Community Food Systems Mentorship Program offers Network members the opportunity to work directly with a food systems expert to support their growth, learn best practices, and connect with seasoned food movement leaders.
Bevelyn Afor Ukah, Co-Director of the Collective on Racial Equity (CORE), Artist, Justice Educator
Website:Â www.Afioak.comÂ
About Bevelyn:Â
Bevelyn Afor Ukah is a consultant, facilitator, and artist who supports youth and adults in building skills that foster equity, collaboration, cultural connection, and organizational effectiveness. Her work is grounded in the belief that sustainable systems change begins with reflection, accountability, and relationship.
Bevelyn has lived in three countries and traveled extensively, experiences that shape her relational, context-aware approach to leadership and mentorship. She is a self-taught artist who developed her creative practice as a form of inner resilience and grounding, with the hope that her work encourages others to cultivate self-love and community-care practices.
She is deeply drawn to multigenerational learning spaces and to working with people as they learn to hold multiple truths without divisiveness. Bevelyn believes that when individuals and organizations commit to reflection and meaningful accountability, new possibilities for collaboration and transformation emerge.
Bevelyn holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology from Guilford College, where she was a Bonner Scholar and Multicultural Leadership Scholar. She completed a Master’s degree in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management, with a concentration in facilitation and social justice.
She currently co-directs the Collective on Racial Equity (CORE), where she works with food systems leaders and organizations to develop shared language, historical grounding, and analysis around race and equity. Bevelyn is also the founding consultant of AFI Oak Consulting.
In addition to her facilitation and consulting work, Bevelyn is the author and illustrator of a multi-generational children’s book, Kalu, which is slated for publication in the next one to two years. Her work reflects a strong commitment to somatic and art-based healing, and to cultural work as a meaningful strategy for community-based change.
Areas of Expertise
Seeking to Mentor
I would like to work with individuals who believe in lifelong learning and are looking to further develop a mindset for growth, while finding joy in the process. I’d be happy to work with new professionals or folks looking to make pivots in how they are going about their current work. I would like to work with food systems (emerging and/or current) leaders who want to center equity in their practices at work and in their personal lives.
Responses