Austin Milan 2019

AID Austin invites you to a talk by Jayaram on  “Ideas for governance, democracy and environmentalism”

Date: Saturday, October 19, 2019
Time: 11.30am
Venue: Lord of Life Lutheran Church, 9700 Neenah Ave, Austin, TX 78717

Please RSVP here. Thanks!

Our special guest will be Jayaram Venkatesan, co-founder of Arappor Iyakkam (Tamil for “Non-Violent Movement for Justice”). Jayaram‘s interest in social justice and livelihood generation was deepened when he began volunteering for AID-US in 2002.

He moved back to India in 2007 to work full time on social justice issues.

Jayaram founded Arappor Iyakkam in 2015 to build a society where citizens are informed and empowered to ensure government officials are attending to the needs of and are accountable to ordinary citizens.

In the few years of its existence, Arappor has grown to engage thousands of volunteers to expose some of the most corrupt political officials of the Tamil Nadu government using creative campaigns and mobilization efforts.

The movement has also thrown light on environmental issues such as water body (lakes, ponds etc) maintenance, water works contract work etc. Citizens are now more aware then ever before about the importance of water and water bodies due to Arappor Iyakkam’s efforts.

Today, this is one of the foremost movements against corruption in India. Jayaram will share Arappor volunteers’ persistent efforts to be changemakers pushing for transparent governance.

Please save the date and do join us. We look forward to hosting you.