Kim Afreeka. Bio.
Creative Director @ Keep It Moving Studios, LLC.
Executive Director @ K.I.M.S. Kids Foundation, Inc.
President/CEO @ Okolieaboh Group
Life Coach & Business Consultant @ Kismet Life Coach
Curator at AFREEKANA Marketplace
ALBANY, NEW YORK
@ 23 years old, Kim became a foster kinship mother and a Social Activist in Upstate Albany NY, she started her 1st non-profit "AGAPE FAMILY SOCIETY" and was given the Audre Lorde Women's Fund grant to fund her women's program "NEW ATTITUDES", she lobbied for women & children's rights at the Senate, worked p/t at a women's homeless shelter, appeared on local talk & news shows and her life as a single mother was featured on a special for "CBS Nightly News". She modeled for charity, hosted an on campus taped talk show, while studying Sociology & Theater Arts at the Maureen Stapleton Theater in Troy, NY where she got acclaim as "Lyric" in the theater adaptation of the film "Jason Lyric".
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
After moving to Baltimore, she began doing background acting in local films & on the HBO hit series "THE WIRE". She studied Screenwriting and Social Work @ Morgan State University and wrote her 1st screenplay, "A Wishing Well in Brooklyn". During this time she interned at Innervisions Worldwide and The Father & Sons Program with Adeyemi Bandele and Iyanla Vanzant, and the Whole Life Expo in Chicago with Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyer and Caroline Myss. Kim was commissioned to create gift baskets for "The Great Blacks in Wax Museum" by her mentor and friend the late, Dr. Elmer P. Martin. She began making and manufacturing her "Annie Pearl's Home Remedies" organic products, (named after her maternal grandmother) to help with her school expenses. That same year, she was chosen to model for Morgan State University Annual University Campus Catalog. Kim began to write and perform poetry and became a published poet.
She served on local community boards for head start, lead paint poison & HIV/AIDS, she worked closely with various political cabinets and government agencies, Baltimore's Mayor Schmoke and O'Malley Administration and the U.S. Senate & Congress while continuing to lobby for the rights of women & children. She was invited to be the student chair of the HIV/AIDS Policy Committee and ran a Sister Circle Support Groups for the women on campus. She was rewarded the Congressional Black Caucus Spouses Education Scholarship. In 2002, she graduated from Morgan State University School of Social Work and inducted into the Phi Alpha honor's society for excellence in scholarship.
In 2003, She was accepted into the prestige advance standing program at University of Maryland School of Social Work and received a dual master's degree in Management and Community Organization/Clinical Social Work, with a focus in Family and Children services. She founded the Master Moms Group on campus to serve as a support for mothers working towards their master's degree.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. In 2003 Kim spent a year in New York City, doing therapy sessions with children that were victims of 9/11. Kim started her own private practice, Kismet Life Coach, LLC in Atlanta in 2006. She ran monthly seminars on spiritual laws and trained others to become coaches through her virtual university. She organized "Soul Cafe" a Community Art Organization that showcased Atlanta's creatives via various media outlets and ran Young People United youth development workshops at the local charter school in East Point, GA. She received a scholarship to study film at SCAD-Atlanta but decided to go to L.A. as she always dreamed of, to pursue acting, fashion and film.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
In 2010, Kim moved to Los Angeles where she studied & interned @ Petro Fashion House & assisted in the design & construction of gowns for the 2011 NAACP Awards. She was a fashion show production assistant @ the SACHIKA Twins Domestic Violence Benefit Fashion Show in LA. In 2014, She completed her studies in Cinema Arts with a focus on Film Production. She began an entertainment partnership "BORMIK Media Group" with business partner, Comedian, Nelson Martini. Kim had the pleasure of working on the production of the Pre-Grammy Show 2012, the 2013 & 2014 BET Awards Show & the 2014 LA Film Festival and assisted in writing jokes for the 2015 Katt Williams Tour.
In 2015, Kim opened a clothing e-commerce House O' Aggie, in honor of her Grandmother, Agatha who was a dressmaker and owned a dress shop in Harlem, named Kismet. She continues to create and mix amazing all natural organic products for her skin care line, Annie Pearl's Pharm. She organized and hosted - the Catalina Goddess Spa & Jazz Retreat. She organized the Blacks Boy United Forum in Compton and invited young black men, local politicians and community organizations, to discuss the burning issues of that Black Males were dealing with within their community, like police brutality, systematic racism and gang violence.
In 2016, Kim wrote, produced, directed and starred in "A Wishing Well in Brooklyn". She founded {K.I.M.S.} Keep It Moving Studios and {K.I.M.S.} KIDS Foundation to serve as Hubs for creative and social entrepreneurs to use their talents to help make the world a more beautiful place through art & activism.
PARIS, FRANCE
In 2018, Kimberly moved to Paris, France to expand her business and take her brands to the next level, she opened her office in Paris on August of 2018 with plans to continue graduate school at Schiller International University to obtain a Masters in Art in International Relations and Diplomacy with hopes to expand her humanitarian work globally.
GHANA, WEST AFRIKA
In 2019, Kimberly was accepted to Schiller International University in Paris and after her first semester, traveled to Ghana for the Year of Return for African Diaspora. 2019, marked 400 years since the beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Once in Ghana, she lived in a small village in Osu and volunteered as a English teacher at the Osu Salem Primary School. After spending some time with the local women and girls, Kim noticed a shortage of black dolls in the villages and local markets, this prompted her to start the Black Dolls for Black Girls Campaign, to help promote positive self-images and self-love for brown skin girls, to counteract the increase in skin lightening products in Afrikan countries due to a lack of appreciation for brown skin. With her dreams of starting her own Afrikan Centered Learning School, she arranged a team of advocates from the village and met with the Chief in the Yabi Village in the Ashanti Region capital, Kumasi and was gifted land, by the King, to build her FREE school, KIM AFREEKA VILLAGE ACADEMY. She is currently working as the International Coordinator and Ambassador for the Pamela Bridgewater Project for Women & Girls in Ghana and Founder of the Keep It Moving Studios Kids Foundation, Inc. She is currently working as Interim CEO for Africlata an International Cultural and Trade Organization and travels the world extensively for business to promote international trade in Afrika.
PERSONAL Life & Struggles
In Kim's personal life, she is a mother of 2 adult daughters and grandmother of 6 and has been married to her soulmate for 6 years. Kim lives, studies and work between America, France, Dubai and Africa. in her spare time, she likes archery, graffiti and painting.
Kim has overcome many personal obstacles and is open and transparent about what she has been through; from being born drug addicted, neglected, childhood sexual abuse, poverty, arranged marriage, domestic violence, date rape, criminal behavior, self-hate and long bouts of depression and P.T.S.D., She feels if she can get through what she's been through and still make a positive impact in her world and others, then anyone can. She uses her life as a testimony in hopes to inspire and encourage others to love, forgive and accept themselves and to continue to surrender to a greater good that abides within us all.
