Ayanna Robert
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Ayanna Robert, is an Author, Entrepreneur and Veteran and Domestic Abuse advocate. Not only is she an Air Force disabled veteran, but also a business consultant and solution-oriented, transformational leader and educator. From her vast work experience, she garnered diverse leadership skills in the implementations of policy, strategy, business modeling, change management, and organizational effectiveness. Recently, Ayanna has taught Boots to Business Reboot, Strategic Business Planning and Business Basics for the Veterans Business Administration. Within the realm of academia, Ayanna facilitates corporate and small business workshops to leaders within small, medium and large corporations to corporate executives and their teams. Ayanna has also led project teams and consulted on a multitude of projects in the private and public industries.
She holds an MBA in Management and Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice along with certifications in Entrepreneurship, Financial Statement Analysis, and Project Management. She is the founder of Escape the Cycle, an endowment funding program that offers scholarships and resources to children survivors of domestic abuse households and the founder of Glocal Veterans.
An entrepreneur and business owner, as well as published author, Ayanna's background as a military veteran, sexual assault survivor and battles with PTSD has shaped her writings and services provided to disenfranchised business owners, mainly veteran business owners..
Early Years
Ayanna was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Growing up in an environment where the struggles and unmet needs of the Greater New Orleans community were abundantly clear, Ayanna’s early observations shaped her perception around survival, emphasizing the importance of independence, which became a driving force in her life, leading to works like her book titled, Fighting for individuality.
Growing up as a military brat in an evangelical Southeast Louisiana environment, instilled faith, tenacity, out of the box drive and unadulterated commitment to a family first mindset. She has committed her life to helping those with backgrounds that parallel or intersect psycho-social dynamics that peaked her attention, mainly women and children issues and minorities and veterans in business.
The military veterans within her family were a source of inspiration for her eventual career path. She did not receive the necessary resources and support towards transitioning into civilian life, after their service. As a young child, she spent many days seeking to disrupt the normality of her elders from drug abuse, medical malpractice, and cycles of addiction and abuse. Additionally, she witnessed the overwhelming lack of support and false promises of the United States Forces that facilitated these cycles of harm and perpetuity, which is why in her teenage years, she began working directly at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, as an attempt to prevent the conditions that plagued her family and city around her.
Veterans Outreach and Advocacy
A leader and instructor of Veterans Affairs Business Administrative Outreach, Ayanna continues to work in Veterans Affairs, as a veteran herself. Her connection to the specific issues that veterans face puts her in a position to guide and educate the various populations she serves. Even further, she has a keen sense of the needs of a veteran, pursuing business, education, funding, support, and resources. Due to the ways in which veteran's in this country, specifically Black and disabled veterans are often dismissed or under-supported, she holds the responsibility to assist and provide an intermediary and ratchet, alternative to the system of neglect, lack of support, and pressures that veterans encounter when exiting their military post exit or retirement. An active resource when veterans are in a transitory period.
Mission and Purpose
Ayanna is passionate about this specifically because minority soldiers still fight wars abroad yet return home to homelessness with no comfortable pragmatic solutions to calm the voices of mental illness or heal the pain of physical trauma. These ailments plague their current existence and negatively impact our communities at large. In Berkeley and other urban communities and neighborhoods, homeless veterans populate our corner and flood our food kitchens and churches.
Overall Goals and Solutions to Ills
Under the direction of Ayanna Robert, Glocal Veterans is an agency providing entrepreneurial solutions and resources to service members in transition to curve the conditions that lead to homelessness and hopeless addictions. Being that Ayanna is an African American, disabled veteran that has been working with veterans for over 20 years on the ground navigating the non-profit, governmental, and academic forces to meet the needs of Black and Brown soldiers. She has experienced complications holding on to long term civilian employment due to PTSD and for this reason has worked as a consultant and self-employed entrepreneur for 25 years.
Like Ayanna, black soldiers from the Civil War, Tuskegee Airman, the Vietnam era, Operation Desert Storm and more recently Afghanistan, return home broken with no real solution to move forward; her injuries from the military still being felt to this day. Since the beginning of her experiences with the United States Military and Veterans Services, Ayanna has remained firm in her efforts and hopes to bridge that brokenness. In witnessing and receiving testimony from her clients, she identified a disconnect that contradicted the nature of the work they were charged and hired to do for veterans. In response to the numerous critiques and challenges VBOC faced, Ayanna went on to create an independent organization of support for Veterans and Active Duty Soldiers.
Glocal Veterans
Founder of an organization that pioneers out of the box solutions for veterans living in the United States and abroad. Practical solutions are provided to individuals seeking an understanding of the business and entrepreneurial process without pursuing the traditional academic route to entrepreneurship and business.
These individuals often enter at the age of 17 and are exploited due to their impoverished conditions and are promised a better life and access to school, travel and better financial conditions, yet find themselves on the front line of war. Those fortunate to return home, return with addictions to drugs and severe mental illnesses severe mental illnesses, with challenges navigating the world they fought to defend. Those that suffer with PTSD conditions, like so many that suffer with this condition are not able to hold on to jobs, receive an adequate disability rating or hold on to families. Providing an outside of the box solution to business ownership paves a way for a second chance while the veteran receives other supported services to return to a place of dignity and wholeness. Issues facing transitioning military members include: gaining access to the veterans benefits portal, lack of transferable skills to the civilian world, and assimilation back into society and the struggles on the outside.
Oftentimes, veterans services agencies are led by non-veterans. This disconnect is manifested through an attempt to create a centralized plan instead of one customized to meet the service members socio-economic profile while meeting the business needs of their business. As a veteran, Ayanna pioneered and engineered a strategic plan to first gain the trust of her clients, then provide out of the box practical customized solutions to open a business that meets the veterans and their customer's needs.
References
Author of Escape the Cycle, Poetic Reflections Journal, Sanity through Crisis and a practical guide to end domestic abuse, E-Commerce Solutions For Veteran Entrepreneurs, The Approaches to Work-Life Balance, Public Speaking, Career
https://apps.urban.org/features/homeless-veterans/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/us/military-enlistment.html
https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/whos-joining-military-myth-vs-fact.html