The Leadership Conference, The Education Fund Announce New Staff Members
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kiren Marshall, [email protected]
WASHINGTON — The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund announced today that Meeta Anand will be joining the organizations as Senior Program Director for Census & Data Equity, Yterenickia Bell as Senior Advisor, Voting Rights, and Sarah Edwards as Editorial Director.
“We are very excited to have such talented professionals joining our organizations. Their experience and commitment to advancing civil and human rights are indelible, and we are very fortunate to have their expertise as we continue to build an America as good as its ideals,” said Wade Henderson, interim president and CEO of The Leadership Conference and The Education Fund.
Meeta Anand most recently served as census consultant to The Leadership Conference Education Fund. Prior to this role, she served as New York Immigration Coalition’s Census 2020 Senior Fellow where she spearheaded the organization’s efforts to ensure a fair and accurate count of New Yorkers, particularly immigrants, in the 2020 Census. In this capacity she also served as the facilitator and convenor of New York Counts 2020, the statewide coalition of CBOs engaged in the 2020 Census. She also recently served as Board Chair for Sakhi for South Asian Women, an organization dedicated to addressing gender-based violence in the South Asian community of NYC. Anand spent over 10 years working at the law firm White & Case, where she was an associate in the project and asset finance group and headed business development for the same group. Prior to that, she clerked at the Court of International Trade, interned at the Division of Appeals and Opinions at the New York State Office of the Attorney General, worked as a commercial banker at Banco Santander, interned at the Bureau of Human Rights at the State Department, and assisted research in economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.A from the The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a B.A. from Tufts University in Political Science and Economics, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.
Yterenickia ‘YT’ Bell was previously the National Organizing Director at Care in Action/National Domestic Workers Alliance supervising the state directors and program managers in seven core states, while developing electoral and legislative strategy for state and federal campaigns. Prior to that, she was the Director at the Progressive Governance Academy, a project between the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), Local Progress, and re:power to build and develop the leadership and governance skills of progressive state and local elected officials across the country. She was also the Deputy Director of a statewide public policy coalition table, Georgia Engaged (now America Votes Georgia), where she provided strategies and best practices for successful programmatic implementation. She is a native Georgian and graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and Political Science and a Masters in Social Work and Public Administration with a focus in Economic Development and Planning. Bell has worked as a social worker and public policy professional serving vulnerable communities and solving complex problems for over a decade. She is also a Councilwoman in the City of Clarkston.
Sarah Edwards previously served as senior writer and editor at The Leadership Conference and The Education Fund. Prior to joining the organizations, Edwards was the communications and development manager at the National Juvenile Defender Center, working to protect children’s constitutional right to counsel. She moved to Washington, D.C., to earn a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs at American University, where she completed a year-long fellowship at the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Before that, Sarah served two terms as an AmeriCorps VISTA in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, a nonprofit law office that provides holistic legal defense and fights to keep children out of the criminal-legal system. After moving to the District, Sarah also worked with the Vera Institute of Justice and the Center for Children’s Law and Policy. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 230 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund builds public will for federal and state policies that promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. The Education Fund’s campaigns empower and mobilize advocates around the country to push for progressive change in the United States. It was founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. For more information on The Education Fund, visit civilrights.org/edfund/.
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