In February, Janis Broderick announced she was stepping down as executive director of the Elizabeth Freeman Center after 16 years.
“Our organization is strong," she told WAMC. "We've been growing over the years, we're financially secure, we have fabulous staff and fabulous board and volunteers. I think the pressing issue down the line is, our facilities in Pittsfield, we've outgrown them, and we'll need to do something about that. But we have a group of board members and volunteers who are working on that as well. And so, the new leader will have support in that effort.”
After a months-long search for Broderick’s successor, the center’s new executive director is preparing to take charge next week.
“I'm originally from India. I came to the US almost like, 28, it's been 28 years. My background is in international development and nonprofit management. I have worked in international development agencies, bigger nonprofits, and community-based nonprofits the last 20 years, and most recently, I was the executive director of a community-based nonprofit that helped low-income bilingual women become trained medical interpreters and provided career placement and job training opportunities for them," said Divya Chaturvedi, most recently the head of Boston-based Found in Translation. “My passion is for empowering women. My background has been, since my earliest volunteer job, so to say, when I was literally a child, of providing education in villages, to my international development projects that work to empower women through either grassroot training or microfinance, working in nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership to provide leadership training to nonprofit leaders and women in developing countries who traditionally and financially didn't have access to this high-ticket leadership development training, and then to my work in leadership role at domestic violence agency.”
Chaturvedi has also served as co-executive director of Saheli Inc., another Boston area nonprofit, that works to connect South Asian and Arab survivors of domestic violence with resources and support.
“We partnered with Elizabeth Freeman Center when we had clients in this part of Massachusetts," she said. "In Berkshire County, there is a South Asian population and Arabic speaking population, and we reached out to the center to get the help.”
Chaturvedi holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In 2022, she was appointed by the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators to the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women as a state commissioner.
“This is a government body tasked with being the voice of women in Massachusetts, gathering information, data, and really informing the government and the governor's office about the issues that that really impact women at the grassroot level and at every level," she explained. "So, I've been a state commissioner, I'm on their finance committee, I'm the vice chair of the finance committee at the state commission, and those experiences really uniquely positioned me to really contribute to the mission and the work of Elizabeth Freeman Center.”
She tells WAMC that her past work has taught her to carefully study the factors that impact service in communities like Berkshire County that face substantial systemic barriers.
“It takes a lot to serve an underserved community, because the resources are usually not as much available," Chaturvedi said. "They are scarce. Berkshire County, as I know, there are these mountain towns, there are barriers of transportation, there's barrier of internet connectivity, there's also community barriers in the sense – and which is similar to what I experienced coming from immigrant communities – where it's harder for women to kind of reach out for help."
Chaturvedi starts as the new executive director of the Elizabeth Freeman Center and its three offices in North Adams, Pittsfield, and Great Barrington on September 16th.
