INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman is an educator, journalist and an arts communications professional with significant work in the arts, public health, and youth development fields. She formerly served as One Common Unity's Associate Director. A native of Washington DC, Ms. Ali-Coleman was raised in many of the communities she is now proud to serve. She began her career working with youth from high-risk areas as a case manager for the CHOICE program, founded by Mark Shriver out of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and later began working as an educator with Prince George's County, MD Public Schools as an Instructional Media Specialist.  She continues to balance work in these areas, helping  community-based organizations become familiar with social media and the arts while crafting engaging programming that is outcomes-driven and founded in Advancing Youth Development (AYD) theory.

In 2005, a year before becoming certified as a trainer of AYD theory through the Child & Youth Investment Trust Corporation's BEST Network in 2006, she started So Our Youth Aspire (SOYA), a consultant group, to formalize her boutique of services for youth-serving agencies. She became the founding writer for the Youth Development channel on Suite101.com and later covered education news as a freelance writer for The Afro, The Washington Informer and District Chronicles.  She has presented at national conferences, introducing strategies to build literacy skills through the arts, including her Story Quilting arts literacy tool she created when teaching her young daughter to read.

Khadijah Ali-Coleman has served District youth in various capacities since the late 1990's. She served as the Assistant Director of Prevention Services for Covenant House Washington (CHW) from 2001-2006. She coordinated an in-school and out-of-school time award-winning youth program recognized by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy serving over 200 District youth in Wards 7 & 8 annually. In 2005, she developed the summer enrichment program "Kwanzaa In July, recognized by the Center for Summer Learning as an honorable mention. She executive produced the unit's first CD compilation In My World, featuring original poems written and/or performed by the program's youth participants.

As Program Manager for the Academic Enrichment Program at Morgan State University, she created employee incentives, development, and task-monitoring programs serving 2500+ students, overseeing a $400, 000 annual budget. At Morgan, she developed a comprehensive academic support program for first-year at-risk university students, serving as a model for other campus programs, serving 500+ students. While there, she led a committee during Morgan State University’s Foundation of Excellence one-year self-audit to effectively create comprehensive first-year student programming campus-wide.  While there, she was awarded the 2007 Director’s Award by The Office of Residence Life and the 2008 Vision Award for Service.

As a consultant to area nonprofits, she has aided youth serving agencies in training, curriculum development and facilitation services, including DC Scores, The Washington National Opera, The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Southeast Ministry and Sisters4Sisters, Inc. Ms. Ali-Coleman has expertise in Instructional Systems Design and holds a Master of Arts degree from Towson University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).  She's studied an array of disciplines, from Education to Theatre Arts.

A poet, playwright and performance artist, she created the online social network Liberated Muse in 2008, which is an online portal for literary, performance, and visual artists. Shortly after, she co-founded Liberated Muse Arts Group (formerly Liberated Muse Productions) which produces annual festivals and benefit concerts, including the annual Capital Hip Hop Soul Fest.  She has been featured in the media for her work on WAMU 88.9, WPFW 89.3, WTTG Fox 5 and in numerous print publications and was awarded a "Woman of Power" award from eMedia in 2011 for her community work.

Ms. Ali-Coleman is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa leadership honor society, ASCAP, and Poets & Writers, Inc. In 2012 she named one of Prince George's County, MD's Top Forty UNDER 40 in Arts & Humanities by the Prince George's County Social Innovation Fund. In addition to serving as One Common Unity's Interim Executive Director, she is an adjunct faculty member in the Communication Studies and Theater department at Northern Virginia Community College.