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Advancing Community Organizing Practice:
Lessons from Grassroots Organizations in India
Kavitha Mediratta and Clay Smith
kavitha.mediratta@nyu.edu
claysmithny@yahoo.com
August, 2001
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Acknowledgements
- About the Authors
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- 1. Introduction
- 2. Background
- Community Organizing in the U.S.
- Community Organizing in India: Expanding the Dialogue
- 3. Grassroots Organizing in India - Three Profiles
- The Self Employed Women's Association
- The Organizing Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi
- The Rural Education and Development Society / the Dalit Jagruti Samiti
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The Organizing Legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
- The Young India Project
- 4. Lessons from Grassroots Organizing in India:
- Ideology
- Collective identity
- Struggle and Development
- Movement-building
- 5. Implications for U.S. Organizing
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- References
- Notes
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Appendices:
- A: Glossary of key terms, concepts and people
- B: Gandhian Guidelines for Satyagraha
- C: Research Process
- D: Organizations and Individuals contacted and visited
- E: Peer Group members
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the many individuals and organizations in India who hosted us and
generously shared their time to help us understand their work. We are inspired by what we
learned from them.
We are also thankful for the advice and guidance provided by our colleagues in New York
City.
Lastly, we want to thank the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund for making
this research possible.
About the Authors
This research project developed out of our work as organizers in New York City. Clay Smith
is an organizer with the Stamford Organizing Project in Stamford, Connecticut, and
previously worked as a school reform organizer for the Northwest Bronx Community and
Clergy Coalition in New York City. Kavitha Mediratta is a senior project director at the
Institute for Education and Social Policy of New York University. She has facilitated
citywide coalitions of community groups working for policy reform and helped community
groups develop school reform organizing strategies.