East-West Gateway Council of Governments
Saroja Schwager currently serves as the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator at the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, a position held since April 2024. Prior to this role, Saroja Schwager accumulated extensive experience at AmeriCorps St. Louis from October 2018 to February 2024, where responsibilities included Disaster Response & Training Program Manager, Disaster Training & Exercise Coordinator, Emergency Response Team Lead, and Emergency Response Team Member. Previous roles include Policy Fellow at The Center for Climate and Security and Junior Researcher/Graduate Research Assistant at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. A graduate research internship was also completed at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Earth Institute, Columbia University in June 2018. Saroja Schwager's educational background includes a Master of Arts in Climate and Society from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in International/Global Studies and Environmental Policy from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts in German Studies from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
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East-West Gateway Council of Governments
The East-West Gateway Council of Governments (EWG or Council) provides a forum for local governments of the bi-state St. Louis area to work together to solve problems that cross jurisdictional boundaries. The geographic region that East-West Gateway has served since 1965 is the 4,500 square miles encompassed by the City of St. Louis; Franklin, Jefferson, St. Charles, and St. Louis counties in Missouri; Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties in Illinois. East-West Gateway’s designation as a regional council of governments (COG) means that the agency has the civic responsibility to set the table for cooperative planning and problem-solving among and between any of its member local governments who believe that they can accomplish better things by working together than by acting separately. Although much of this cooperative planning takes place among the eight major jurisdictions of the region, it is not uncommon to find several small cities and towns clustered around a community betterment initiative at East-West Gateway. These initiatives address issues as diverse as tax policy, environmental quality, public safety, workforce development, access to jobs, economic development, community planning, and others that might be of interest to members of the Board of Directors.