Sarah Khan, is the Director of Programs at the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence. As the Director of Programs, she oversees the coordination and administration of all aspects of government, public and privately funded API-GBV programs. She also manages and supervises all programmatic areas of technical assistance (TA) and training; designs and evaluates programs and processes; acts as a subject matter expert (SME) on various TA, and training and research topics; supervises staff; develops and monitor budgets. In partnership with the Executive Director and management team, she identifies programmatic opportunities and challenges and helps determines organizational strategy that contributes toward ensuring all programs work collaboratively in tandem to advance the organizational mission and vision.
Sarah’s direct service experience has deeply informed how she understands and addresses challenges faced by the community she serves. After 9-11, she intentionally chose to work at the intersection of race and gender justice to concretely reduce the vulnerability of immigrants, refugees and other marginalized groups. Sarah has a longstanding passion for grassroots activism, domestic violence advocacy, and community education and empowerment, with close to 20 years of working in the field. She has expertise in program design, development and management; with a focus on changes to people, organizations and systems across areas. Her passion is fueled by breaking silos and encouraging herself and others to address intersectionality in their work by addressing root causes of gender based violence. Originally from Kashmir and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family, Sarah is fluently multi-lingual in various South Asian languages. She has a BA in History (Hons.), an MA in Political Science and an M. Phil in International Relations from New Delhi, India.
Sarah envisions a world free of gender-based violence for communities with equal opportunities for all to thrive. She strongly feels it’s everyone’s duty to disrupt gender based violence, which causes physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual and economic harm worldwide, including within Asian/Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities throughout the U.S. and its territories.