Kimya Afi Ayodele's Story
Kimya Afi Ayodele, born ShariLynn Robinson, was reared in an activist-minded household. After “coming out” as a lesbian in 1996, she celebrated by participating in a re-naming ceremony during an annual Kwanzaa celebration. Her name means, “Noble educator, joy comes home.” Ayodele’s career as an activist for social justice first began in 1997 and she has accomplished quite a bit in this nearly 10 years’ time. She is a founding member, and was later the board president, board secretary and chair of the public relations and marketing committee for Karibu House Inc., a project to build a community center for SGL/LGBT people of color in the city of Detroit. During her four-year tenure with this project, she was responsible for initiating the annual Kid’s Fair, which is held annually during Detroit Black Pride Society’s Hotter Than July! Pride celebration, and the annual pre-Kwanzaa Soiree, which is held to educate LGBT non-people of color about this holiday, and she assisted Karibu House Inc. with obtaining its 501(c)(3) status and their first grant; the Gill Foundation’s LGBT People of Color Initiative Grant. She received a certificate of appreciation after leaving the board in 2002. In 1999, due to her work with Karibu House Inc., Ayodele received her first award from the Stonewall Pride Banquet Committee, a Community Spirit award. It was also during this time, from 1998-2000, that Ayodele was one of the first African-American female freelance writers for the state of Michigan-based Between the Lines newspaper and also assisted the publishers with developing the first people of color resource page for their accompanying Pridesource, Michigan’s only LGBT-focused directory. In 2000, Ayodele was a founding participant for Race Matters, which was a group of SGL/LGBT community members who gathered to share and discuss the issues of racism and sexism within the SGL/LGBT community.
After being suddenly terminated from her position in 2003 as a unit manager of a Alzheimer’s and Dementia Unit for a well-known religious-based long-term care company because she is an “out” lesbian, Ayodele was recruited to film a commercial and completed several interviews for the Gill Foundation’s TurnOut Project. The commercial and the interviews were aired and printed in three states. Ayodele also founded the African-American Lesbian Moms support group during this year. In 2004, Ayodele joined the staff of Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center as its first community outreach coordinator. Her primary responsibilities included coordinating the outreach programs for the six groups within the SGL/LGBT community identified by Affirmations as having been historically underserved. They were people of color, the bisexual/attractional communities, the transgender communities, people of varying spiritual/religious backgrounds, people with disabilities and older adults. She was also responsible for providing diversity training to the Affirmations staff. During her time at Affirmations, Ayodele joined the Transgender Michigan Speakers’ Bureau as an ally speaker and participated in the statewide recognized Different People, Common Ground workshop series at the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion, formerly known as the NCCJ, among many other projects. In 2005, she was instrumental in working with Amnesty International to bring delegates of J-FLAG (Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays) to Michigan during Black History Month for a program addressing the ever-growing problem of hate crimes against LGBT citizens and visitors. To assist in the fight against Proposal 2, she joined One United Michigan’s Michigan United Women’s Speakers Bureau with the responsibility of speaking at Detroit-area senior citizen buildings about the proposed anti-affirmative action amendment. She also participated with the ACLU’s Black Caucus to defeat this initiative. Ayodele was also interviewed as the only “out” African-American lesbian for a documentary on Proposal 2 by the nationally renowned African-American Policy Forum based in Maryland. In 2006, because of her many efforts in attempting to unite the SGL/LGBT communities in the city of Detroit and the suburbs, she received her second award from the Stonewall Pride Committee and the city council for the city of Detroit, this time a Spirit of Detroit award. In October of 2006, Ayodele’s position at Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center was suddenly eliminated, amidst allegations of a history and a pattern of racial insensitivities. Also in 2006, Ayodele returned to freelance writing for Between the Lines newspaper with a monthly food column called Kimya’s Kitchen. She was also asked to write the fourth “state of the LGBT/SGL African-American community” address by KICK!, which is the agency for LGBT/SGL African-Americans in the city of Detroit working to build the LGBT/SGL welcome center for the city of Detroit, for their annual membership recruitment brochure. In January 2007, Ayodele will join the Leaven Center, a well-known social justice conference and retreat center in mid-Michigan, as their first-ever constituency and fund development coordinator.
Ayodele received a bachelor’s degree in social work from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a master’s degree in social work from Wayne State University. She holds a state of Michigan license in both micro and macro social work practice and is also a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers. She has nearly 20 years of professional experience in social work with an interest in gerontology and diversity. Ayodele is an adjunct faculty member at the Wayne State University School of social work where she teaches and has been a guest lecturer to both undergraduate and graduate students for social work courses in diversity and sexual orientation. She is currently applying to the Wayne State University School of Social Work’s new Ph.D. program in Social Research where she will study African-American older women and the effects on their mental and physical health when coming out later in life. Over the past 10 years, Ayodele has also led many presentations, workshops and trainings on diversity, emphasizing the importance of individuals and organizations acknowledging and accepting the importance of the often-delicate balance between what she terms “same-ness” spaces and “true inclusion.” Her non-professional interests include studying and advocating for the plight of the people in her beloved adopted country of Haiti and sumo wresting, as a spectator, among many other interests. She is the owner of her own catering business specializing in healthy, vegetarian and vegan international and African-American southern cuisine. She currently resides in Ann Arbor and is the proud, and appreciative, mother to her daughter, Abeni Lynn.