Staff

Seema Agnani, with over 10 years of experience in community development, was an initial founder and director of Chhaya CDC, a community-based organization in Queens dedicated to meeting the community development needs of South Asians in New York City. Before joining Chhaya as Executive Director, she served as the coordinating consultant to the Fund for New Citizens at The New York Community Trust, a donor collaborative that assists immigrants in New York City and the organizations working on their behalf. She formerly served as Director of Training and Technical Assistance at Citizens for NYC. Chhaya was initially incubated as an affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality, where she worked for several years, first as a housing development associate; later in fundraising and development; and finally as the first coordinator of the Lower Manhattan Health Care Coalition. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development.

Afreen Alam is Chhaya's Program Director and is responsible for managing and strengthening Chhaya's programs and services, policy advocacy and community organizing efforts, as well as developing and implementing new programs. She received her Master's degree in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Most recently she worked as a Program Officer for UNAIDS and as a consultant for The Hunger Project and the PAMOJA TRUST in Nairobi, Kenya. Her latter assignment focused on slum upgrading and community led housing development
issues in one of the largest informal settlements of Nairobi. Daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, Afreen grew up in Queens, New York and has been involved in protecting and advancing immigrant rights in various capacities. Her community organizing experiences in New York include advocacy work with Workers Awaaz, a community based organization in Queens. She is fluent in Bengali and has proficiency in Hindi.

Shama Mubdi joined the Chhaya in 2001 and is currently the Housing Counselor and Office Manager. She manages client intake and counseling programs in addition to coordinating office administration, bookkeeping, and procurement. She has over 10 years of experience in direct services as well as office administration, and speaks English, Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi.

Board of Directors

Charu A. Chandrasekhar is a lawyer with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, where she focuses on state and federal challenges to laws restricting access to abortion.  Her prior business and nonprofit experience includes work at Bain & Company; the National Immigration Project; and the Harvard Civil Rights Project. She graduated from Harvard Law School and Yale College. 

Shomon Shasuddin is a policy analyst for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Trained as an architect, he has worked on community development projects in New York, Connecticut, and Maryland.

Vanitha Venugopal is a planner by training and works as an Associate Program Officer at the Surdna Foundation, a national family philanthropic organization. Previously, she served as Director of Housing and Associate Director of Planning and Development for the Queens Borough President and has over twenty years of experience in planning and housing in New York City. She is a board member of Asian Americans for Equality.

Mohammad Ali works as an engineer during the day and at night maintains a community based law practice. In his law practice, Mr. Ali deals primarily with the South Asian community and with issues related to real estate, corporate law, administrative law and immigration. Mr. Ali has over 15 years of experience dealing with issues related to homeownership, landlord and tenant matters, landuse planning, and construction. Mohammad Ali was born in Pakistan and raised in Queens, New York. He currently lives with his family in Holliswood, Queens and maintains a law office in Valley Stream, New York.

Oda Friedheim has been a Staff Attorney at the Queens Neighborhood Office of the Legal Aid Society since 1996. At Legal Aid her work includes defending tenants in eviction and ejectment actions in civil and supreme courts, enforcing housing codes through litigation work on behalf of tenant associations and representing low-income homeowners in state and federal courts. She was formerly a founding director of the Lower East Side Local Enforcement Unit of the MFY Legal Services, served on the New York City Rent Guideline Board under Mayor Dinkins; and served as the Director of Housing Development at the Ecumenical Community Development Organization. She currently serves as an advisor to Resident Landlord-Tenant Law In New York and is on the board of the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court. Mr. Freidheim was awarded the New York IOLA Legal Services Fellowship in 1998, the Arthur Kinoy Fellowship at Rutgers University in 1996, and the Revson Fellows on the Future of the City of New York in 1993.

Joseph Hawlader has over 20 years of financial management experience in private and not for profit industries. Currently, Mr. Hawlader serves as an Sr. accountant with  NOITU, a sole national trade union in New York.. He formerly served as a Business Manager for the YMCA of Greater New York for five years where he managed numerous City and State level contracts.  Formerly, he was Controller for a major manufacturing company for four years.  He is a founding member of the Human Evaluation and Leadership Program in Dhaka, Bangladesh; a member of Source and Solution, a credit union based in New York; and serves on the board of advisory boared of Probashi Christian Bengali Association.

Santosh Raikar is Vice President of Commodities Principal Finance at Lehman Bothers since 2006 focusing on structured financing for energy companies. Before joining Lehman Brothers, he worked at Deutsche Bank for five years first in the Emerging Markets group and later in the Global Principal Finance Group. Born in Mumbai, India; Mr. Raikar holds a Masters of Science from both Arizona State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Mr. Raikar serves on the Board of Directors of Chhaya Community Development Corporation; is a Fellow of the 21st Century Trust, London, UK; and previously volunteered with Deutsche Bank’s Microcredit Development Fun.

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