About Abeda

Abeda Khanam is an award winning science teacher, mental health advocate, and chaplain based in Queens, New York. With over two decades of experience in the classroom, Abeda's scholarly interests now lie in fostering youth resiliency. As an American Federation of Teachers Teacher-Leader, Abeda created a novel peer tutoring program that is mutually beneficial, increases emotional fortitude, and involves parents and the community.

Outside the classroom, Abeda is a fierce champion for mental health advocacy, focusing on community resilience. She does this work through facilitating classes on adult and youth mental health course-- including virtually--titled Mental Health First Aid (MHFA). She has brought this certification course to thousands of Americans, from New York City's Union Theological Seminary to Chicago University's College of Pharmacy.

Abeda's work as a chaplain is seeing the community through the COVID-19 pandemic. This means everything from address food insecurity, to getting folks connected to vaccination. Abeda dreams of a future where we all come out of this trying time, if not better than we came in, at the very least without incurring debt in terms of our mental health.