Companions for Change

Yusef-Andre Wiley was born October 24, 1969 and raised in South Los Angeles, California. Both his parents, Betty and Sampson Wiley, are originally from Texas. Yusef-Andre is the youngest of five children. By the age of 13, he started associating with gang members and getting into trouble around the neighborhood. After serving a juvenile sentence, he continued his gang involvement in the areas of South LA (Compton, Watts and Willowbrook). The negative lifestyle that comes with being a "gang banger" eventually landed him in the California prison system at the age of 21.

After being placed in solitary confinement, Mr. Wiley began to discover his spirituality and later converted to Islam. It was his spiritual faith that took him away from the violence and destruction of gang life to a purposeful and honorable way of living. He served 22 years before he was released in May 2012 at the age of 43.  Mr. Wiley has now been working for many years to end gang and youth violence through his program development, writing, and intervention.

Mr. Wiley also has assisted several reentry start-up organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, was a former Commissioner on the Human Relations Commission of the City of Union City, and sat on Alameda County reentry panels and advisory boards. He is an author and has gained an AA Degree in Small Business Management as well as earned a degree in Paralegal Studies. Additionally, Yusef-Andre Wiley is a certified speaker, trainer and life coach of the John Maxwell Team, an international certification program.

Muhammad Alshareef has a tremendous impact on the Muslim world, through his talks and books. His lectures can be seen in videos posted on YouTube, while his bestseller books are widely read by Muslims around the globe. In this series, you will be introduced to Muhammad Alshareef’s life story, his early years of education, family life and some of the most significant lessons he learned along the way.

From 2004-2016, Zahir passionately worked within the federal prison system helping to promote a variety of educational initiatives amongst inmates. This vulnerable population needed life skills services, personal coaching, secular and spiritual curriculums which Zahir helped to operationalize by personally teaching while at the same time working with chaplains and program directors. He continues similar work today counseling the formerly incarcerated population and facilitating their societal success by connecting them to the varied reentry services they desperately need. He is also a CA Registered Alcohol and Drug Technician (RADT-CA).

In 2016, Zahir began to mentor inner-city youth in several SoCal organizations by helping them to implement their personal action plans toward solving current social justice issues. He currently teaches 2nd and 3rd generation immigrant youth instructing them via a spiritual curriculum infused with civic and social justice awareness. In 2019, Zahir entered a Master’s of social work program to professionalize his advocacy work amongst the justice-impacted. His first-year internship was working as a mental health intern in a dual diagnosis residential clinic conducting client assessments, bio-psycho-socials, treatments plans, and advanced case management. 

His second-year internship consisted of working with the justice-impacted providing one-on-one counseling, facilitating therapeutic groups, and developing a healthy family relationships program. Zahir has given interviews, presentations, run workshops, and written articles highlighting the intersections between mental health and recidivism. He has also has published his Master’s thesis entitled: “Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Recidivism: Perceptions of Key Justice Stakeholders in Southern California”. He intends to continue working with the Muslim and justice-impacted populations as a mental health and substance abuse professional.

In this episode we discuss starting college early and creating impact from an early age. 

In this episode of "Companions for Change", Sahaba Initiative Co-Founders Arbazz Mohammed and Malek Bendelhoum sit down to reflect on the growth of their non-profit organization, as well as how Sahaba Initiative plans to help even more people in the coming year!

In this episode, we discuss how to create a legacy in Ramadan by developing a personal road map that spans beyond Ramadan. 

In this episode we share reflections on the Derek Chauvin trial.