Dear Friend,

 

A part of our team has always been our dedicated Board members who from behind the scene support our members and organization.

 

This year we had two long-standing Board members of Adhikaar, Shirley Lin and Rinchen Sherpa, step down as Board members. We wish them well and look forward to their continued involvement with Adhikaar as a part of our community.

  • Rinchen served on Adhikaar's Board for seven years and was instrumental in offering valuable perspective as an immigrant whose family lives in Darjeeling. Rinchen showed up for everything including as a volunteer at our legal clinics on TPS and supported cases on the side. As our Treasurer for many years she was instrumental in ensuring stability of the organization during our ED transition in 2017.
  • Shirley served on Adhikaar's Board for six years. With roots in Queens she was key to connecting us with broader movements and legal communities. Shirley supported individual cases, organizational development needs and legal needs of the organization. She was key to ensuring stability during our ED transition and served as the Secretary before her departure.   
 

WE ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE that Mayadevi Ross, Seema Agnani and Sharon Lee have joined as new members of our amazing Board. We are inspired by these fierce women who come to Adhikaar with key expertise and deep commitment to our mission of building a powerful, diverse and intergenerational space centering Nepali-speaking immigrant workers.

 

Get to know our new Board members:

Mayadevi Ross spends her time working both on and off stage in New York. For the last two years she's worked at New York Live Arts, home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, in Communications and Digital Media. Since graduating college from NYU Tisch, she's built a career within non-profit arts organizations and prioritizes engaging and empowering artists whose voices have been historically ignored. When not in the office you can catch Mayadevi performing in plays, singing in musicals, tap dancing in studios, and occasionally doing stand up comedy. In her spare time, Mayadevi enjoys working out, watching bad reality tv, reading Octavia Butler, and getting lost in a RPG video game.

Seema Agnani (she/hers) serves as Executive Director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD – pronounced “capacity”), a coalition of 100 community-based organizations that advocate for and organize in low-income Asian American and Pacific Islander communities towards a vision of economic and social justice for all. She has more than 25 years of experience in community development, capacity building and immigrant rights. She was a founder and Executive Director of Chhaya CDC working in the South Asian community of New York City, leading the organization during the great recession and the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11. She began her community development career as a project manager with Asian Americans for Equality.

Later, she served as lead coordinator of the Fund for New Citizens at The New York Community Trust, a donor collaborative focused on immigrant rights in New York City. Seema is originally from the Chicago area where her parents emigrated to from India.

Sharon Lee has 15+ years of experience in local government and electoral campaigns, specializing in strategic communications, community partnerships, crisis management, labor relations, and public policy. Through the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Lee served as the County Executive of Queens, NY, home to nearly 2.4 million residents and the most diverse county in the continental United States. Before that, Lee served as Deputy Queens Borough President and communications director to former Borough President Melinda Katz. Lee was an integral part of the team driving the administration’s top priorities and helped shape public positions on key issues.

Previously, Lee served as senior advisor and press secretary to former New York City Comptroller John Liu. Lee also served as a policy director in the New York City Council, ran numerous political campaigns including state and citywide races, and led various transition teams, most recently for the Queens District Attorney. You can find her at @sharonleenyc on LinkedIn, FB, Twitter.     

 

Visit our website here to learn more about the other amazing members of our Board.   

 

In solidarity,   

 

Pabitra Khati Benjamin,

Executive Director, Adhikaar