Priti Shah

Priti Shah brings 38 years of her experience and feminist insights to her advocacy work for JDEI. Her activism has been shaped by her upbringing in India and her experiences as a racialized settler in Canada. Her work is focused on challenging systemic racism and processes that negate immigrant, refugee, and non-status women's potential and experiences within nonprofit, public sector unions, governments, interfaith organizations.

She excels in intersectional facilitation, strategic thinking, leadership, coaching, and navigating spaces related to privilege, race, and gender fostering inclusive environments.

Priti specializes in designing, facilitating strength-based, anti-colonial, holistic programs with an intersectional approach. Through 500+ workshops and focus groups, she challenges gender and racial inequalities and promotes the full integration of racialized immigrants by addressing systemic barriers. Her strength is her conviction with a practice seeded in compassion.

In the labor movement, Priti spearheaded Phase 1/2 of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at the Hospital Employees Union (HEU). As a DEI officer, she led workshops and presentations that transformed DEI practices for locals, members, and leadership. She, along with other staff, established six new Diversity Vice-President positions on HEU's provincial executive board, enhancing diverse representation and leadership integration. When 8,000 HEU health workers, mainly housekeepers lost their jobs due to privatization, her work as an organizer was integral to the union’s multi-year Living wage for Families campaign.

She has designed & coordinated national/international union conferences focused on issues of social justice, our voices Rising (CUPE 2006) and Redistribution of Wealth - Economic and Environmental Justice from Indigenous and faith perspectives (2010).

In BC, she applied an intersectional approach as a leader in the Women’s Employment and Training Coalition and on the BC Labour Force Development Board.

Her union/ political experience reflects a commitment to inclusive environments, equitable policies, empowering diverse voices, advancing social justice.