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Get Involved

Oorvani Foundation is a non-profit committed to civic engagement, citizenship and communities. We connect people who want better cities with civic information, tools, networks and resources they need to make it happen.

Oorvani Foundation enables centring citizen voices, democratising urban data and community-led solutioning!

There are different ways to engage with our work — Citizen Matters gives you the information, insight and ideas to make a difference as an active citizen. In turn, you can share your insight and experiences as a citizen journalist, helping strengthen and amplify citizen voice. We organise regular events and workshops to help understand urban issues better and develop skills in change-making and storytelling. We enable community networks of fellow citizens working to build better cities.

Be a citizen journalist

Are you a dedicated, active citizen deeply immersed in the issues of your community? Do you track local issues, engage in civic developments, and actively contribute to solving problems? Do you have a story that others in your neighbourhood and beyond will benefit from? Then Citizen Matters is your platform to document these invaluable experiences!

Why do we believe in citizen journalism?

There are several reasons. Firstly, there’s a scarcity of journalists compared to the multitude of stories needing coverage, especially in large cities. Professional journalists focus on tasks citizens can’t do: investigations, analysis, and in-depth reporting. Citizens offer an insider’s perspective, providing more context and sensitivity to local issues. They connect policy decisions to their community’s daily lives, utilizing their cognitive surplus. Citizen journalism democratizes media, giving voice to communities and documenting civic change. It adds diverse opinions to public discourse and offers complete stories directly from those experiencing them, fostering quicker knowledge sharing and learning.

Contribute data

Our Open City platform brings visibility and transparency into local governance, fosters better understanding of urban and civic issues through data and facilitates civic engagement. Open City hosts a data repository to make public data about cities easily available, accessible, discoverable and readily usable. If you have data that can enrich public understanding of urban topics, please do connect!

  • Email us at opencity@oorvani.in.

Participate in datajams and solutioning workshops

We collaborate with volunteers to gather, analyze data, and suggest solutions. Our regular datajams are community gatherings where individuals from various backgrounds convene to tackle public issues such as traffic or mobility. Together, we utilize publicly available data to comprehend and assess these challenges, brainstorming and crafting solutions collectively.

Become a civic changemaker

Our programmes help citizens learn, engage and become civic changemakers. Look out for webinars, roundtables, masterclasses and workshops. We also host regular community interaction and networking. Track us on social media, or subscribe to our newsletter to track event announcements.