WANDA Amplifies the Voices of Black Women and Girls in the Food System

An Interview with Tambra Stevenson, Founder and CEO of WANDA

What are the voices of food freedom? Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture (WANDA), a DC-based nonprofit organization, amplifies the voices of Black women and girls leading in the food system in this premiere video release prior to its Sisterhood Supper: #Juneteenth Celebration kicking off WANDA Week.

Juneteenth represents not just emancipation of Black bodies and minds but also from colonized cuisines that have robbed our generational health. “From diabetes to heart disease, I have family members who have been victims of an unjust food system from lack of land to lack of nutrition education,” says Tambra Stevenson, founder/CEO of WANDA.

“For too long Black women and girls have been hidden figures in our food system. Yet they have used food as their superpower to nourish a nation and heal their homes," says Tambra Stevenson, CEO of WANDA. "We are not only amplifying their voices but fund the movement towards food freedom." Food sheroes - are not just professional women in food and nutrition but our mothers, aunties, and nanas - who are addressing hunger, nutrition, & health inequities while building upon a legacy of food freedom fighters on the frontline like Georgia Gilmore, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Harriet Tubman.

WANDA is grateful for the community-wide support for the Food Shero Freedom Fund which helps establish their next endowment at an HBCU. Share this video with your community and join in the conversation of inclusive representation in leading the food system by changing the narrative using #IamWANDA and #FundtheFightNow

About Tambra Raye Stevenson MPH

CEO, Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture

Tambra Raye Stevenson is the founder and CEO of WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture building a pipeline of a million women and girls to lead from farm to health through education, advocacy, and innovation. Tambra is working at the nexus of nutrition equity, sustainability, and health. She has been named the 2021 Science Defender by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a 2021 Changemaker by Clean Eating Magazine, 2020 Changemaker in the Food System by Washington City Paper, National Geographic Traveler, ASHOKA/RWJF’s Champion for Children’s Wellbeing and by the NAACP with the Wm. Montague Cobb Advocacy Award. She was appointed by USDA Secretary Vilsack to the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board. Tambra serves as the nutrition and health working co-chair for the D.C. Food Policy Council and nutrition security working co-chair for the Tufts Food and Nutrition Innovation Council. She holds an M.P.H. in health communication from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, and a bachelor’s degree in human nutrition with a minor in Spanish from Oklahoma State University. She is currently working on her Ph.D. at the American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C. After Tufts, Tambra began her public service career at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the D.C. Mayor's Office on Women's Policy and Initiatives, and at the University of the District of Columbia’s College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences.

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