Neelam Sharma, Executive Director, neelam@csuinc.org

Neelam currently serves as Executive Director for CSU and has worked with CSU in various capacities since moving to Los Angeles in 1996. Under her tenure CSU has shifted from and all volunteer organization functioning mainly as an incubator for other grass roots agencies to having 6 staff members, office space and an array of high impact community programs.
Neelam has been responsible for the creation and development of CSU’s food justice education and training project, The Community Food Village, its social enterprise The Village Market Place, and for recruiting and training staff to run these programs. Neelam also oversees CSU’s involvement in local and state policy issues and has represented CSU as a founding member of the Healthy School Food Coalition, the Los Angeles Food Justice Network and the California Food and Justice Coalition. Prior to relocating to the United States she first became involved in community organizing as a pre-teen in response to an attempt by fascists to organize in Southall, London, where she grew up. Over the years she was involved in the creation of an employee rights center (winning a landmark tribunal against racist employment practices), several campaigns against racist attacks, police abuse, and illegal deportations, and a campaign against spousal abuse within her own community of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent.
Neelam’s food justice work has been driven by her specific need to feed her family when she moved to South LA and her broader understanding of the basic human right to high quality, culturally appropriate food as a critical element of social justice. In her work with CSU Neelam has conducted numerous workshops and trainings and spoken at various events and panels around the country, including as a keynote speaker at the Kellog Food and Society Conference in 2009.