PROFILE

Staff

Gulnahar Alam, Executive Director
Nahar Alam has been an organizer in the United States and Bangladesh for almost 20 years. Nahar works towards a vision in which all workers are treated with respect and their rights are enforced. She has been organizing South Asian immigrant workers in New York City since 1993 through several grassroots Asian-Pacific Islander community organizations. Nahar is an ex-domestic worker and a domestic violence survivor. She works directly with workers and lawyers on Andolan’s cases, and gives presentations and trainings to workers, law students and other organizations serving the community. A key component of her work is community outreach and coalition building. Nahar represented Andolan at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001. She also helped develop the Streetwise Cultural Diversity Curriculum for the New York Police Department in 2001. Nahar has received the Susan B. Anthony Award from NOW (1996), an award from the Petra Foundation (1998), the Union Square Award from the Fund for the City of New York (2001), and the Sneha Award for work in fighting for the rights of Domestic Workers in the U.S. (2002). She was also a Revson Fellow at the Columbia University during the 2003-2004 academic year, where she focused on gender studies. Nahar was instrumental in founding Andolan in 1998 as a community group focusing on organizing low-wage South Asian women workers. 

Prita Lal, Bookkeeper
Prita works part-time as the bookkeeper and is responsible for various financial and administrative duties. She is also currently pursuing a Master's degree from Columbia University in South Asian Studies and received her Bachelor of Arts from Tulane University in New Orleans. In addition, Prita works as a Paralegal at the National Employment Law Project, which is one of Andolan's allied organizations and a non-profit that advocates for low-income and immigrant workers. At NELP, she works directly with the Litigation Director on a lawsuit representing over 1,000 grocery delivery workers predominantly from West Africa. Prita has further international experience living abroad in Paris, France and Dakar, Senegal.

Amy Paul, Development Associate
In addition to being responsible for fundraising, Amy also provides support to program staff. Amy is currently pursuing her M.A. in International Affairs at the New School. She has worked in the nonprofit field for the past five years, on issues such as domestic violence, immigrant rights, affordable housing and racial equality. Prior to joining Andolan staff, she was a Community Organizer at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn.

Board Members
Nahar Alam
Shamshun Nahar
Marjina Khalifa
Nisha Varia
Mewa Chodhury
Monisha Bajaj

Volunteers
Chitra Aiyar
Dipty Jain
Yi-Mei Lu
Monique Mehta