Vision & Strategy, Marketing & comms, consulting
varun khattar sharma
varun khattar sharma (they/he/she)is a Punjabi Queer non-binary facilitator, writer, designer, curator, strategist, uncle, auntie, and survivor living in Hartford, Connecticut. They are passionate about working with individuals and groups navigating conflict, harm, abuse, and burnout. Inspired by the writings of Octavia E. Butler, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, they believe deeply in people and society’s capacity and responsibility to heal and transform.
They are a co-founder and worker-owner of the People’s Saturday School and are a 2022-2025 Co-Op Navigator Fellow with the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast and reSET, where they organize Cooperate Connecticut, a membership-based network dedicated to growing and sustaining our local cooperative ecosystem and solidarity economy.
As a program manager with Connecticut Students for a Dream, varun worked with young people, caregivers, educators, school districts, and public universities on expanding college access for undocumented students through training, coaching, advising, and policy advocacy. Prior to that, they worked as a high school social sciences and ethnic studies teacher, youth organizer, trainer, researcher, bilingual teaching assistant, and emergency medical technician.
In 2020, they co-founded the Connecticut UndocuFund, a mutual aid project that redistributed over a quarter of a million dollars to working class immigrant households impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2017, they were involved in establishing Hartford Deportation Defense and the Neighbor Fund, grassroots organizations fighting for the rights of undocumented immigrants in Central and Eastern Connecticut.
varun has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut where they concentrated in Sociology, Psychology, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Latinx, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies.
They have trained in facilitation, teaching, and organizing from the Center for Economic Democracy, Co-Creating Effective & Inclusive Organizations, the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance, Beyond Diversity 101, the New York Collective of Radical Educators, People’s Action, the Midwest Academy, the National Conference for Community and Justice, the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing, Re-Center Race & Equity in Education, and the UConn Women’s Center and Asian American Cultural Center.
Previous consulting clients include Mutual Aid Hartford, the Connecticut Black and Brown Student Union, reSET, UConn Office for Diversity and Inclusion and Division of Enrollment Management & Planning, Manchester Public Schools, and Vernon Public Schools.