The TEAM

Where TEAM = The Environment Allah & Muslims The Environment Allah & Muhammad

In alphabetical order

Shanna Darwish Teacher/Educator Project Manager/Primary Education

Shanna is a lifelong educator who has worked at all levels of primary and elementary education. She has spent four years working as a preschool teacher and half a dozen years as a substitute teacher. Furthermore, she has taught abroad at the Nefertari American School in Cairo, Egypt for several years.

She is a creative educator who is passionate about raising the next generation of environmentalists. She inculcates environmental responsibility and accountability in all her young students. Shanna brings a unique experience and expertise to the organization. She is a specialist on Junior environmental education. She has been working and collaborating with other educators on an initiative to transform the school in which she teaches and support them to take the leap and become a pioneer in Islamic environmental education and model a “green” and compassionate temperament to its members and community. In addition, Shanna is working on turning the institution into a “GREEN” and “LEAN” facility with holistic energy conservation measures and eco-friendly practices and policies.

Shanna holds a BA in psychology from North Carolina State University and a Master of Education (MEd) in New Literacies and Global Learning. She is an irreplaceable asset to the team.

Fiaz Fareed Director/Outreach Strategy

Fiaz Fareed had always felt a passion and a desperate need to bring relief to the distressed. An academic background in Nuclear Medicine Technology led to an on-going career as a practitioner in this field for more than two decades. Mr. Fareed has left a positive mark on several local area hospitals in the Triangle including Duke Health, UNC Healthcare and WakeMed Health & Hospitals. He has also rendered his experience and expertise at some of the most prestigious medical institutions in the Middle East.  This expansive body of work does not begin to tell half the story. Mr. Fareed has another remarkable livelihood which even eclipses his professional accomplishments. This livelihood starts at Close of Business (COB). It is volunteerism.

Mr. Fareed’s affiliation with the Islamic Association of Raleigh (IAR) spans virtually the length of his professional career. But when we speak of volunteerism, we could comfortably say that he’s a professional at it. Take a deep breath. Fareed has given his time in a capacity of school guard and traffic monitor. He has been entrusted to collect donations and has also been on the other side of the financial transaction to sign the outgoing checks. He serves the community as a part time Friday lecturer “khateeb” for half a dozen Islamic centers and associations in the Triangle.

He has especially earned his stripes in the area of outreach (da-wah) and public relations where his passion and commitment is unmatched.  He has given countless formal presentations and informal talks. At the IAR, he is a host, a tour guide and hospitality manager for coordinated visits. He teaches a beginner’s class on Islam for new Muslims and other classes and lectures suited for non-Muslims who want to merely learn more about the religion and their Muslim neighbors. His outreach stretches to prisons across the state where he supports, mentors and counsels inmates.  Mr. Fareed is currently the Outreach Chairman of the IAR and has served previously as a member of its elected Board of Directors (shurah). Undoubtedly, the title he is most proud of is that of custodian of the two buildings (Khadimeel Imaratain”) at the IAR.

For many years, Mr. Fareed toiled to coordinate relief work in Bangladesh, provide clothing for orphans in Gambia and other humanitarian relief for distressed regions unsettled by an International Political Economy (IPE). Recently, he visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh where an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 displaced refugees flocked to escape ethnic cleansing and genocide at the hands of Aung San Suu Kyi's and the Myanmar military.

In short, Mr. Fiaz Fareed is first and foremost a giver with a selfless passion to relieve and improve the unspeakable conditions of the poor, oppressed and the weak at home and abroad. This statement of fact can be supported with his early engagement with Mariam Clinic, a healthcare provider that extends free medical & dental care for the underprivileged and disenfranchised. Mr. Fareed is Chairperson of Outreach for Mariam Clinic Outreach & Recruiting. He holds current memberships with several national and international non-profit organizations.

Mouhamadou Niang Founder & Executive Director/Global Operations

As Executive Director, I endorse a lean and agile framework as a means for governance by borrowing from an Agile Project Management methodology to deploy instructional and educational programs, green events and other key deliverables. With short iterations called sprints, an organization can deliver outputs and outcomes expeditiously and more accurately. Furthermore, we see a tremendous benefit in adopting those applicable elements of the ITIL 4 (4th edition) framework to non-profit such as the Service Value System or (SVS). The SVS describes how all the components and activities of an organization work together as a system to enable value co-creation. In addition, I support a horizontal organizational structure that organically enables creativity and speed through progressive elaboration and Design Thinking rather than a vertical corporate structure with a process oriented culture.

The non-profit sector is often plagued with a limitation syndrome. It seems there’s never enough money and never enough volunteers or resources. This is a crippling posture and mindset that often creates organizational silos and mental restrictions on organizations. We intend to “detonate”, not in the real sense of the word, but in the manner Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach use the word in their book Detonate: Why and How Corporations Must Blow Up Best Practices (and bring a beginner's mind) To Survive.

We’re looking to achieve goals while staying within the iron triangle constraints of scope, budget (cost) and time (schedule), but we’re also looking at which of these three might have the lion’s share at any given time.  We want to leverage technology, automation and especially social capital. We want to have the right people in the right roles? M4THEE supports the prophetic tradition of leadership rotation in various roles to promote growth and increase mentorship. On an agile team for instance, every member on the team can fulfill with varying degrees the other roles on the team. This cross training is paramount for agility.

We are strong advocates of Continual Service Improvement (CSI) in general and especially of Kaizen, the Japanese Continuous Improvement philosophy which combines the collective proactive talents within an organization to create a powerful engine for improvement. M4THEE will strive to achieve its maximum production and exploit risks whether threats or opportunities as we consider them in Project Management. This doesn’t mean working tirelessly and endlessly. It means working smart, starting where you are and with all that is available to you. It’s working with pride and purpose and with a clear vision while deliberately making the work fun and fulfilling along the way.

Mouhamadou holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in International Relations from North Carolina State University. His career spans more than twenty years in Telecommunications where he wore many hats. His longest tenure with Verizon was as an Implementation Project Manager. He holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from Project Management Institute (PMI), a Professional Scrum Master (PSM1) certification from Scrum.org, the organization that writes the Book of Knowledge (BOK) on Scrum and an ITIL 4 certification, an accreditation in IT Service Management (ITSM). He is exploring a CBAP certification is Business Analysis and is interested in Design Thinking. He is fluent in French and Arabic.

Mouhammad S. Niang Agronomy/Crop Science Project Coordinator West Africa Region

Mouhammad S. Niang is a Hafith of Al Quran and an undergraduate student in his last year at the University of Amadou Hampathé Bâ (Université Amadou Hampaté Bâ) in Dakar, Senegal. He is majoring in Agronomy (the science of soil management and crop production) and has a special interest in aquaponics “aquaponie” and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a means to leverage their individual and combined application on agriculture. Aquaponics is a process which allows producers to raise and grow a protein and vegetable crop simultaneously.

Mouhammad is currently getting his hands dirty in farming and experimenting in various planting techniques. With his academic experience and knowledge in crop science, Mouhammad will (isA) anchor M4THEE’s Dakar, Senegal office and act as M4THEE’s Project Coordinator (West Africa Region). He will oversee and coordinate Muslims 4 the Environment’s farming projects in the rural regions of Senegal and support the growing farming movement especially among the youth and millennials through education and mentorship. In addition, Mouhammad will coordinate M4THEE’s efforts and participation in the (Grande Muraille Verte) or Great Green Wall. The Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel is a project led by the African Union, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel. It spans 7800 kilometers in length and 15 kilometers in width across the African continent from Senegal to Djibouti. 

In his past-time, Mouhammed teaches the Quran and helps his former Quran teacher.