Join us in welcoming Shikha Jerath to the Neighborhood Allies Team!

Shikha joins Neighborhood Allies as our Leadership Fellow. She will be responsible for  identifying, engaging, and empowering local leaders in distressed and transitional neighborhoods. Her experiences in such communities (East Palo Alto in California, East Lake Terrace in Atlanta, and Homewood) have taught her that for community revitalization to be successful, authentic inclusivity and empowerment of local leaders is essential. As Leadership Fellow, Shikha will work with community-based organizations to understand leadership needs and connect leaders to resources that help them engage their communities and more effectively impact the investments that affect them. She will also be responsible for the ongoing coordination and development of  our Community Leadership Forum, a body of grassroots leaders representing Neighborhood Allies’ communities of focus who work to share and transform their ideas into projects for the improvement of their communities.

She brings experience developing new community initiatives based on primary and best practice research from work conducted as a Community Building & Social Change Fellow in Atlanta, Georgia. She completed the Coro Fellows program in Public Affairs in 2014; during that year, she worked with Bridgeway Capital, Homewood Children’s Village, and Allegheny County Manager’s Office, developing and implementing data analysis and evaluation projects. In order to understand urban issues from the inside, she spent a year as an algebra and geometry teacher for low-income high school students.

Shikha holds a Masters in Instruction and Curriculum from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Emory Goizueta Business School in Atlanta GA. At Neighborhood Allies, she is excited to create and innovate in her new role and constantly find ways to better help the neighborhoods and city she loves!

She can be reached by email: shikha@neighborhoodallies.org.