Meet the YOWLI 2010 Facilitators!

Paula Whatley Matabane

Paula Whatley Matabane is an associate professor of television and film at Howard University in Washington, DC.  She is also an award-winning independent documentary film producer, ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, certified trainer in Kingian nonviolence resistance, and former public television producer and host.  For over 20 years, Paula helped organize US support for southern Africa liberation movements, was part of the creation of a national women’s organization (Women for Racial and Economic Equality) devoted to the needs and concern of working women and children. She also created the Sister-Friend Ministry to support homeless women and children.  

As a teenager, Paula participated in voter registration drives in the American South as the walls of racial segregation were falling.  She is a published scholar of research on the lessons viewers learn from watching television, and representations of minorities in American media.  Paula has produced three independent documentaries on the African American faith experience and racism in religion.  A native of Atlanta, GA USA, Paula earned the Ph.D. and Master of Divinity degrees from Howard University, M.A. from Stanford (California) and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.  Paula has preached, taught and made academic presentations across the world always with a firm commitment to the goal of reconciliation and nonviolent resistance.  She has one adult daughter, Mashadi, and a passion for family genealogy and history.

Mashadi Matabane 
Mashadi Matabane is a doctoral student in American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, USA. Her background includes writing, reporting, researching and editing with a focus on representations of black identities and black women's cultural productions throughout the African diaspora. As well, transnational human rights/social justice issues with a focus on women and children. She has worked on the editorial staffs of U.S.-based women's magazines. She is a graduate of New York University (MA, Magazine Journalism) and Spelman College (BA, comparative Women's Studies).