Michael Rafael Ehijo-Sierra is a second-generation Cuban, Puerto Rican, Nicaraguan and Salvadoran organizer, educator and nonprofit founder currently residing in Oakland, California. He has built community through direct service and education for over 10 years. During his undergraduate years at City College of San Francisco, he organized alongside Save City College, Diversity Collaborative and MEChXA community school while teaching in the school’s community preschool. He later transferred to the University of San Francisco in the dual-degree Teacher Preparation Program, becoming a lead preschool teacher and coach/enrichment program director.
Michael also founded a direct-action mutual organization called San Francisco Homeless Outreach Project, which later became Myriad Outreach Project in 2016. Now a charitable nonprofit, the org centers on connecting intersectional people through shared experiences. Myriad engages in collaborative art activism: banner drops, flyers, posters, shields making/training, street murals, educational forums, performance art, garbage pickups, crochet circles and homeless-outreach food drive components, which have fed over 10,000 people now with national and international chapters through its new venture, Meals on Onewheels.
Michael has also co-founded various existing mutual aid groups. Direct Action for Farmworkers provides resources to farmworkers and their families affected by wildfires by raising over $50,000 to direct to frontline workers. Building Community Collective partakes in direct community action centered on self-expression events, art and healing throughout the Bay Area. Michael also is a site coordinator for an equity mentorship program in Bayview, San Francisco, called Urban Ed Academy.
