Who We Are
Ephraim Olani
TVAA Board of Directors
Tsehai Wodajo
Tsehai has over 47 years of wide-ranging work experience, in teaching, directing programs, journalism, and social work to name a few. Established in 2004, she is the founder and Executive Director of an International Nonprofit Organization named Resources Enriching African Lives (REAL), which provides support for orphaned and disadvantaged Ethiopian girls to attend school, develop leadership skills and be self-sufficient to overcome poverty and become leaders. In addition to this volunteer work, she was a senior social worker at Hennepin County for 22 years. Also, she is an entrepreneur and started a food production business about a year ago.
Barry Drazkowski
Mr. Drazkowski currently serves on the Board of the Friends of Trempealeau Lakes, a member of the Technical Vocational Agricultural Academy Board, a board member of the Minnesota Division of the Izaak Walton League of America, and the local Winona area chapter president of the Will Dilg Chapter of the Izaak Walton League. He was a past member of the Cochrane Fountain City School Board, and current member of the Buffalo County Board of Adjustment. He is the retired Executive Director GeoSpatial Services, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He is responsible for developing over forty National Park Natural Resource Condition Assessments, the Badlands NP climate change vulnerability assessment, integrating climate change vulnerability into the National Park Service’s Condition Assessment program, the Upper Mississippi River Basin Stewardship Initiative, the Upper Mississippi Stakeholder Network, British north American spatial data management and assessment system, FWS’ NWI update mapping in several States, and a host of other GIS projects. He was the Deputy Director of the Department of Interior’s Long Term Resource Monitoring Program for the Miss. River and was an environmental planner for the St. Paul District, COE.
Ephraim Olani is executive director at Sub-Saharan African Youth and Family Services in Minnesota (SAYFSM), providing social services and health education to African immigrants/refugees in Minnesota. Mr. Olani is an immigrant from Oromia/Ethiopia. He received his B.S. in pharmacy in 1981 from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and practiced pharmacy until his arrival in Minnesota in 1991. Ephraim earned a MA of education degree from Luther Seminary and many professional certificates, including a mini-MBA for non-profits, from the University of St. Thomas. In 2006, Mr. Olani participated in the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Institute for HIV Prevention Leadership training. He is also LAAMPP II Fellow (Leadership and Advocacy Institute to Advance Minnesota’s Parity for Priority Populations) that works towards a movement of parity and Justice in tobacco control. Mr. Olani was a member of the Hennepin County Joint Community Police Partnership Multicultural Advisory Commission (MAC) for Brooklyn Center and the recipient of the commission’s 2007 Human Relations Group Award. Mr. Olani was 2012-2013 Policy Fellows at Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.
Dr. Kano Banjaw - Program Director
TVAA Core Staff
In 2019, Dr. Kano Banjaw recognized the desperate need of gainful employment for the young people of Ethiopia and the extreme need for food security of his people in Oromia. He had a precipitating vision of how knowledge of modern farming practices could attenuate both unemployment and food insecurity. He comes to this place of understanding because he grew up on a farm in Oromia. Following his heritage, he studied agricultural science. He taught agriculture science at universities and worked for many years in social programs to support young farmers in Ethiopia and in Sweden. After penning his ideas and solutions, he reached out to two educators in Minnesota, Erik J. Harris, M.Sc. and Elizabeth Heublein, Ph.D. These colleagues, too, had a history of farming and education. (see CV)
Erik Harris - Curriculum Development Director
From the age of three, Erik spent every summer on his grandmother’s cattle and small grain farm in Minnesota, working with his uncles. His appreciation of working with soil and plants naturally guided him to study biology in college. His commitment to the preservation of his family’s farms led him and his brother to transition the land to organic practices in 2015. As a student of biology and ecology he recognizes that regenerative organic farming practices are essential to regaining soil health and significantly mitigate the impacts of climate change. With certifications in Soil Biology and years of improving soils, he understands healthy soil and is dedicated to assist farmers in learning how to regenerate their soil health. (see CV)
Dr. Elizabeth Heublein - Resource Director
Elizabeth’s training and experience are in education, curricular and community development, and program evaluation in post secondary education. She has worked nationally and internationally training students, teachers, and community members in Experiential Education across a variety of subjects. Her upbringing within a large family farm has served to honor and maintain an acute appreciation of the essential work farmers contribute to a hungry world. She comes to this challenging journey with conviction and commitment that the TVAA Project will help farmers and people in Ethiopia improve their farming practices to improve food quantity and quality, reduce poverty, and increase food sovereignty in their communities. (see CV)
Pastor Adam Tafesse
Pastor Adam Tafesse Mulata, an ordained Pastor at the Central Synod of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Lutheran church Mekane Yesus (EECM), with an MA in Systematic Theology, and serving as Chairman and Coordinator of the Nakamte Town Parish of the Central Synod. The Parish has 13 congregations and 7 preaching areas, reaching out to a total of over 25,000 church members.
The Central Synod renders social and development work through establishing schools and improving and enhancing the well-being of 1) children with special needs, 2) orphans and vulnerable children, 3) rural and urban poor and vulnerable people, 4) single mothers. and 5) unemployed and destitute young women/girls. The Synod also operates health care centers.
The Parish/Synod operates farming projects that teach practical farming methods, providing farmers with improved crop seeds, grass/fodder seeds, tree seedlings, vegetable and fruits seedstock. The Parish has also started a Dairy Farming project in Nakamte Town. (see CV)
