The bridge that we have built over the last many decades is multi-layered. The base of the bridge is cultural. Cultural work is the bedrock for long-term relationship building, trust, and joy. We have arranged, managed, and facilitated the tours of many artists, nonprofit leaders, filmmakers, and intellectuals through North America. For example, among the transnational cultural movements that we have built or enhanced include the music of folk artists such as
Prahlad Singh Tipanya back in the early 2000s and the films of the renowned documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan for almost 3 decades.

Over this base layer of cultural movement, we have encouraged and consolidated relationships between diverse social movements of India. In the early part of this decade, U.S. tours of movement leaders such as Aruna Roy, Shabnam Hashmi, Anand Teltumbde, and Sujatha Surepally, to name just a few, were organised. We have supported the work of marginal communities including Dalits and Adivasis, and worked to popularise the role of giants of social change in India, from Phule to Periyar and Ambedkar in the diaspora.

With this rich history spanning over two decades, we have, in the last two years, developed a unique set of new focus areas in our work. These include:

• The consolidation of Dalit Solidarity Forum, the diaspora’s oldest Dalit rights organisation, including some new and exciting work at the intersection of caste and labor.
• The consolidation of two decades of cultural and social movement work, including critical work within diasporic communities, under a new initiative titled India Civil Watch International (ICWI). This includes initiatives around impact of social media on society, and comparative law and society between India and the U.S., and political and cultural education among Indian American youth. A significant part of this work is in partnership with Bard College, New York.
• A new experimental project to respond to ecological crisis in India, including disaster preparedness and new pathways for sustainable development. This work is being developed as a partnership with the India Research Fund at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.