Sarita Gupta

Last updated

Sarita Gupta (born c. 1975 [1] ) is a British-American social justice activist and vice president of US Programs at the Ford Foundation. [2] Her career has focused on workers' rights and human rights. She joined the Ford Foundation in 2019, initially as director of its Future of Work(ers) program. [3] Prior to that, Gupta served for 20 years in various leadership roles at Jobs With Justice, including as executive director from 2007. During that period, she also co-founded and served as co-director of Caring Across Generations. [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Gupta was born in the United Kingdom and immigrated to the United States. She grew up in Rochester, New York, graduating from The Harley School there in 1992. She earned a bachelor's degree (BA) from Mount Holyoke College in 1996, with studies in women, health, and society. [4] [2]

Career

After graduation, Gupta was elected vice president of the United States Student Association (USSA), then served as president in 1997–1998.

From USSA, she joined Jobs With Justice (JWJ), a national labor rights organization, as executive director of Chicago operations. From 2002 to 2007, she moved to the role of national field organizer, then national field director. In 2007, she became JWJ's executive director. [4] JWJ worked closely in the US to help build the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, a coalition for collective bargaining in the global garment industry, founded in Asia in 2007. [2] [5]

In 2011, Gupta and Ai-jen Poo co-founded Caring Across Generations (CAG), a national coalition of caregivers and care recipients with a mission "to change our culture and policy in America to value and support caregiving". [6] [7]

In 2019, Gupta resigned from JWJ and CAG to work at the Ford Foundation. [4]

Public speaking and media

Gupta has maintained a public profile with speaking engagements and media appearances over the decades. In 1996, at 21 she was the youngest member on a panel on mobilizing women at the first Feminist Expo in Washington, DC. [1] In 2002, she was a guest speaker at the Young Communist League (YCL) 7th National Convention. In 2016, she testified before the US Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She spoke in 2018 at the Aspen Institute on "The Justice System and Jobs: How Court Decisions Are Shaping Americans’ Work Lives". She appeared on a number of panels and in events sponsored by the Obama administration. Gupta has appeared in various media, including MSNBC, Al Jazeera America, PBS, CNBC, and Fox News, and written for the Huffington Post and The Hill, and been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Politico . [4]

Personal life

Gupta lives with her husband, Eddie Acosta, and daughter in Silver Spring, Maryland. She practices yoga and coaches her daughter's soccer team. [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute for Policy Studies</span> American progressive think tank

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American progressive think tank, formed in 1963 and based in Washington, D.C. It was directed by John Cavanagh from 1998 to 2021. In 2021, Tope Folarin assumed the position of executive director. IPS focuses on US foreign policy, domestic policy, human rights, international economics, and national security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urvashi Vaid</span> Indian-American LGBT rights activist, lawyer and writer (1958–2022)

Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she was a consultant in attaining specific goals of social justice. She held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force, serving as executive director from 1989-1992 — the first woman of color to lead a national gay-and-lesbian organization. She is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).

The United States Student Association (USSA) was an American national student advocacy association. It was founded in 1978, and failed to elect new leadership in 2017. "Years of membership decline, restructuring of grantmaking portfolios in large private foundations, and toxic infighting" led to its operational collapse; tax returns continued to be filed in subsequent years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jobs with Justice</span> American labor rights organization

Jobs With Justice (JWJ) is a labor rights organization in the United States, focused on the vision that all workers should be able to collectively bargain. It was founded in 1987 and is made up of individuals and affiliated organizations. As of 2022, Jobs With Justice coalitions existed in over 30 cities or states in all regions of the country. In 2012 Jobs With Justice announced a merger with American Rights at Work, another U.S. union advocate organization. Jobs With Justice is based in Washington, D.C., and is led by Executive Director Erica Smiley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya Harris</span> American attorney and advocate (born 1967)

Maya Lakshmi Harris is an American lawyer, public policy advocate, and writer. Harris was one of three senior policy advisors for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign's policy agenda and she also served as chair of the 2020 presidential campaign of her sister, Kamala Harris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Audre Lorde Project</span> LGBT community and activism organization

The Audre Lorde Project is a Brooklyn, New York–based organization for LGBTQ people of color. The organization concentrates on community organizing and radical nonviolent activism around progressive issues within New York City, especially relating to LGBTQ communities, AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, prison reform and organizing among youth of color. It is named for the lesbian-feminist poet and activist Audre Lorde and was founded in 1994.

Nilofar Sakhi is an author and a policy analyst with expertise in traditional and non-traditional security, geopolitics & peace. She is a professorial lecturer of International Affairs at George Washington University and serves as the president of Andiana Foundation. She holds the position of senior fellow (NR) at the Atlantic Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1977 National Women's Conference</span> Four-day event in Houston, Texas

The National Women's Conference of 1977 was a four-day event during November 18–21, 1977, as organized by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. The conference drew around 2,000 delegates along with 15,000-20,000 observers in Houston, Texas, United States. The United States Congress approved $5 million in public appropriations for both the state and national conferences as HR 9924, sponsored by Congresswoman Patsy Mink, which Ford signed into law. In 1977 at the start of his presidency, President Jimmy Carter chose a new Commission and appointed Congresswoman Bella Abzug to head it. Numerous events were held over the next two years, culminating in the National Women's Conference.

Ruchira Gupta is a journalist and activist. She is the founder of Apne Aap, a non-governmental organisation that works for women's rights and the eradication of sex trafficking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Law and Social Policy</span> Nonprofit organization in Washington D.C., United States

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a liberal organization, based in Washington, D.C., that engages in anti-poverty advocacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ai-jen Poo</span> American labor activist (born 1974)

Ai-jen Poo is an American labor activist. She is the president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is also the director of Caring Across Generations, a national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working to transform the long-term care system in the US, with a focus on the needs of aging Americans, people with disabilities, and their caregivers.

Elizabeth Schoff Watson is an American labor attorney, former executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, and the current Assistant Secretary of Labor for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the United States Department of Labor. Watson was the Democratic nominee for the 2018 U.S. House of Representatives election in Indiana's 9th congressional district.

This is a Timeline of second-wave feminism, from its beginning in the mid-twentieth century, to the start of Third-wave feminism in the early 1990s.

Monica Simpson is a queer Black activist, artist, and executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the United States' largest organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color.

The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, also known as SisterSong, is a national activist organization dedicated to reproductive justice for women of color.

Latina Roundtable on Health and Reproductive Rights (LRHRR) was a Latina reproductive rights organization based in New York City.

For the Hong Kong actress and singer, see Miriam Yeung.

Hakima Abbas is a political scientist, feminist activist, writer and researcher. In 2016, she became co-executive director of Association for Women's Rights in Development. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she advocated for an economic recovery plan, the "Just Recovery" that recognizes the impact of the pandemic on girls and women. In 2021, she co-founded the Black Feminist Fund alongside Tynesha McHarris and Amina Doherty; the philanthropic fund is backed, in part by the Ford Foundation. Previously, she was executive director of Fahamu.

Margaret L. Huang is an American human rights and racial justice advocate, and president and chief executive officer of Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an American civil rights nonprofit. She joined the organization in April 2020, taking over a position held for several decades by founder Morris Dees.

Caring Across Generations (CAG) is an American national coalition of caregivers and care recipients, with a mission "to change our culture and policy in America to value and support caregiving". CAG was founded in 2011 by Sarita Gupta and Ai-jen Poo to address the rapidly rising number of Americans in long-term care and the shortage of home care workers. One of CAG's original goals is to help create two million quality caregiving jobs in the United States.

References

  1. 1 2 de Witt, Karen (Feb 5, 1996). "New Cause Helps Feminists Appeal to Younger Women". New York Times . Retrieved Aug 15, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "Sarita Gupta". Ford Foundation . Retrieved Aug 15, 2024.
  3. 1 2 "Sarita Gupta". World Economic Forum . Retrieved Aug 15, 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Sarita Gupta". InfluenceWatch . Retrieved Aug 15, 2024.
  5. ↑ "Asia Floor Wage Alliance: A Short History at the Brink of Transition" (PDF). Asia Floor Wage Alliance. June 2017. Retrieved Aug 16, 2024.
  6. ↑ Flanders, Laura (April 30, 2012). "Can 'Caring Across Generations' Change the World?". The Nation . Retrieved Aug 17, 2024.
  7. ↑ "About Us". Caring Across Generations . Retrieved Aug 17, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.