Who We Are
The CLT (Community Leadership Team)
Jamal Cyrus
Jamal Cyrus is a visual artist who lives and works in Houston. As a young man he was reared in the creative values of Houston’s historic Third Ward. These values include but are not limited to the use of art & creativity as a community organizing, educational, spiritual, political, and economic tool. His current body of work employs revisionist approaches to American history, particularly within the areas of Black political movement, music, and popular culture. His work has shown in local and national venues, such as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Project Row Houses, Studio Museum of Harlem, and MCA Chicago.
Khalis Rashaad
Khalis Rashaad is the Imam (spiritual director and community guide) of Ibrahim Center. His current studies with his teachers consist of theology, jurisprudence, and spirituality. Khalis’ teaching style focuses on empowering others to engage with the Islamic tradition and apply it in their lives in a practical way. Khalis explores real-world applications of God’s law with a commitment to solving issues relevant to western believers whilst also educating the Muslim and non-Muslim public alike on the religion of Abraham (millat Ibrahīm). He likes to connect grand religious ideas with our messy human reality and articulate theological points of view to challenge and deepen our thinking. His focus is on Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr), narrative building, and applied theology in an American context. He is deeply interested in how faith can practically and constructively speak to western believers’ social, political, and ethical interactions today.
Khalis maintains an active role in community outreach. He is a native of Houston, Texas. Fun fact: He taught martial arts, boxing, and kickboxing for several years. Khalis loves serving the community. He also enjoys reading, good conversation, and coffee.
Kenya Evans
A native of South Carolina, Kenya Evans is an artist living and working in Houston, TX. He made paintings and sculptures conveying an intentionally didactic message about history’s tendency to repeat itself, combining texts from children’s books with popular toys, and comics with Islamic proverbs. Kenya has exhibited at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Houston’s Menil Collection, the 2006 Whitney Biennial, and a number of other institutions in the United States and in Portugal. His practice has since diverged to woodworking, table design, and Islamic geometry.
Kenya is interested in the minutiae of community dynamics; how we all can contribute and the way different skills combine to create a whole. He also enjoys shoes & fashion, barbecue, the many flavors of oud and short walks to a great pot of pour-over coffee.
Melanie Meleekah Villegas
Melanie Meleekah Villegas is a Tejana born and raised in the west part of Houston, TX and moved to 3rd Ward in 2001. She is an activist, community researcher, and artist working on issues related to health, wellness, and community development in Houston’s Third Ward community. Nurtured by service, mentors and motivators, she develops her passion for transformation and renewal through the use of creative methods such as photography, drama therapy and outdoor activation. She enjoys creating space for communal conversations, exploration and healing as a creative connector to support socioeconomically disadvantage communities through the Arts, Culture and Care.
Omar Merchant
Omar Merchant is a native Houstonian, who has lived in the Middle East, Dallas and Austin. He found Ibrahim Islamic Center when he moved back to Houston, and has found family in the IIC community. He has a background in healthcare. His interests include languages, history, and travel. He will be IIC’s barista-in-chief.
Tamika Evans
The necessity of celebration, equity, and creativity motivate Tamika Evans while working alongside community organizations, creatives, cultural workers, community leaders, philanthropists, and neighbors as a community development practitioner for 18 years. Evans was raised in a civically engaged home in the Great Plains region of North America and in the city that was also the birthplace of Malcolm X. Tamika moved to Houston, Texas in 2000 hoping for connection and clarity of her purpose. She values collaboration, creativity, ease and equity. Gratefully, her collaborative leadership is supported by her husband and her three vibrant children. Her family is fortunate to understand the importance of a home and community that nourishes the heart, hands, and mind in this dynamic world. She also enjoys reading, crocheting, nature, and grapefruit.
Roderick Felder
Photographer, Poet and Filmmaker
Born in Brenham, Texas, Rod Felder moved to Houston when he was 8 years old. He is a product of a single parent household, where he, his mother, and his younger brother lived in a modest, country-like Southwest Houston neighborhood home. He has always had a wandering imagination and love for nature, as well as an interest in examining the rich tragedies of the human experience. Even though he has no formal art training, he has spent countless hours practicing in the field to hone his craft. He uses photography, video, and poetry as an outlet to express and educate in a way that provokes a spectrum of natural emotions. He is inspired by the tragedy and the triumph of people and seeks to document single and collective passions and pains. It is not perfection that he is looking for, but the ability to transfer feeling through art. His work is presently leading him down a path of discovery of who he is, at his core. He believes that we have to go deep to uncover the veils that cover the truth.