Welcoming New CGA Board Members!
Join us in welcoming Gale Johnson and Sulekha Sharan Frank who joined the CGA Board in May. We are grateful to them and the other CGA Board Members for their commitment to our vision. Read below to get to know Gale and Sulekha!
Gale Johnson, domestic worker, worker owner of Hopewell Care Childcare Cooperative, We Rise Lead Trainer, and member of the New York City Network of Worker Cooperative’s Advocacy Council
I am honored, grateful, and excited to be accepted as a Board Member of the Carroll Gardens Association. My journey with CGA began in 2015 when an organizer approached me in Carroll Park introducing the idea of starting a child care cooperative for nannies, and asked if I would be interested. My sprit jumped out of my body, I could not believe what I was hearing! I wrote my info down on that clipboard and the rest is history.
Over the last six years, I have been a very active member, attending countless workshops, meetings, info-sessions, trainings, outreach events, phone banks, conferences, street fairs, advocacy trips to Albany, meetings to obtain grants, marches, and more! I’ve experienced first hand all the wonderful work CGA does for all aspect of the community, especially the domestic workers.
Today I am a worker owner of Hopewell Care child care cooperative, on the Leader’s Team of the Carroll Gardens Nanny Association, a lead trainer with the We Rise Nanny Training, and member of New York City Network of Worker Cooperative’s Advocacy Council. I am excited to represent my fellow domestic workers at the CGA Board and help bring our views, visions, and experiences, to help the very same Carroll Gardens Association that was responsible for paving the way for me, an immigrant single mother nanny working to keep a roof over my head, food on the table and care for my child.
Sulekha Sharan Frank, Associate Human Rights Specialist with the New York City Commission on Human Rights
Driven by innovative and creative means of social responsibility, Sulekha has fourteen years of experience in gender justice and economic development. She has worked on gender policy analysis and gender bias budget matrixes for both government and non-governmental programs. A passionate leader in worker justice, she is invested in the developmental challenges women face in low-wage industries. She is a member of the Fair Care Working Group designed to raise the standard of working conditions for low-wage workers of Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook. As an Associate Human Rights Specialist at the NYC Commission on Human Rights, she is dedicated to fostering dialogue and engagement between communities by building partnerships between community organizations and government.
She also currently serves as a lead advisor to the NGO Commission on the Status of Women, a UNESCO approved civil representation platform for the voices and leadership of feminists and women’s rights organizations to have a global lobby for their inclusion in the UN deliberations in pursuit of gender equality. Lastly, Sulekha is policy member at New Kings Democrats where she is working on bringing fair and inclusive practices to the Democratic process in NYC.