Amaha Sellassie: Beloved Community is a Present Possibility (a conversation)

amaha sellassie is a peace builder, social healer, freedom fighter, network weaver and lover of humanity. amaha serves as president of the Gem City Market Cooperative Board of Directors. He’s an Assistant Professor of Sociology and director of Center for Applied Social Issues at Sinclair Community College in Dayton Ohio. amaha is a practitioner scholar dedicated towards building bridges of trust, healing historical wounds, and harnessing the unique gifts and talents of every human being as we press towards a just and equitable society. As the former chair of the Dayton Human Relations Council Board, his areas of interest include health and education equity, praxis, dismantling structural violence and getting the voice of marginalized communities into the center of public policy in order to emerge structures of belonging that acknowledge the dignity and worth of every human being. He is co-founder and board chair of the Gem City Market, a community driven effort to address food apartheid through a food coop dedicated to increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables within west Dayton. He is also co-founder of West Dayton Strong an afterschool/summer program in Desoto Bass public housing that is focused on math and reading development utilizing a S.T.E.A.M. curriculum. Currently he is working towards his Ph. D. in Sociology at the University of Cincinnati with an emphasis on utilizing community based participatory research (CBPR) towards emerging health equity and community transformation.