I work with social change advocates to foster healing while making our world a more just, joyful, and beautiful place.

I won the inaugural SONY South Asian Social Services Award in 2008 for my community-based leadership fighting violence against women. I serve as a content expert in community-based solutions to intimate violence, economic and racial justice, immigrant rights, language access, and policy advocacy.

My current consulting practice includes:

• co-facilitation with Charlene Allen of the Collaborative for Restoring Healing & Transforming Communities working to advance restorative practices in addressing violence;
• facilitation of racial equity, gender justice, and climate justice trainings and organizational retreats; and,
• systems change, field development, and policy research & advocacy.

Reach out at [email protected] to find out about current availability & rates.

Media & Publications

Upstream City: Developing Restorative Pathways to Safety by Nora McCarthy, Jan. 8, 2023

Outside the Man Box: The education of domestic violence offenders by Tracy O’Neill, Sept. 2020

New York City Pledged to Fund Programs to Stop Domestic Violence Without Involving the Legal System. But There’s Disagreement About How to Do it by Roshan Abraham, Aug. 18, 2020

Using Restorative Approaches to Address Intimate Partner Violence: A New York City Blueprint by Erika Sasson and Charlene Allen, Oct. 2020

Interrupting Violence at Home NYC Initiative, May 2, 2018

Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People Who Abuse by Purvi Shah, Nov. 2017

Selected Projects

In 2018, I completed a year-long consultancy with the Center for Court Innovation & Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence to support re-envisioning New York City’s abusive partner intervention programs. The City recently launched “Interrupting Violence at Home” to provide community-based services outside the criminal legal system. Read Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People Who Abuse, the full report on my research and systems change advocacy.

I have developed and led trainings on cultural responsivity in the courts with the Asian Pacific Islander Institute on Gender-Based Violence, provided anti-racist trainings for educators with the Center for Racial Justice in Education, and spearheaded policy advocacy convenings on economic security for advocates working to end gender violence with the Women of Color Network. 

I have taught Asian American literature courses at Hunter College, supported the development of Kundiman, a national Asian American writers organization, and contributed to the Huffington Post.

For nearly eight years, I served as the executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Women. Through my leadership, I enabled increased language access in New York State and enhanced approaches to ending violence. I have been asked to provide expert commentary on violence against women and/or the South Asian community in interviews conducted by CNN, WABC in New York City, New York Times, New York Newsday, WNYC, and a range of ethnic broadcast and print media including GEO TV, India Abroad, Indian TV, New Delhi TV, SONY, and TV Asia.

I have also served as a board member and program committee chair for the New York Women’s Foundation. My expertise ranges from community organizing to evaluation to grantmaking.

You can hear about my own leadership lessons here.

You can hear others glow me up in Purvi Shah Leadership.

Additional Media and Media Production (Selected)