Nāgrika Connect
FOR NGOS & CSOS · ACTIVE CITIZENS · RESIDENTS' COLLECTIVES · CITY-BASED RESEARCHERS
You're not the first person in your city to try this. Nāgrika Connect brings together citizen groups and organisations working to protect what their cities hold — lakes, heritage, green spaces, culture, public life. We don't run projects in your city. We help you find each other, and help what you've learned travel so that others can benefit from it.
WHY NAGRIKA CONNECT
Across smaller cities of India, there are people who notice something being neglected it could be a lake choking on sewage, heritage building quietly disappearing, trees being sacrificed for roads or a commons fenced off. The people in the town decide to act. Some raise CSR money. Most run on individual grit and a sense of ownership towards their city.
Almost all of them figure out everything from scratch. How to get a municipal commissioner to answer an email. How to keep volunteers engaged past the first gathering. How to build consensus when the neighbourhood itself is split. How to document work so a funder, a journalist, or a court takes it seriously.
These are not local problems. They are the same problems, being solved separately, in city after city.
The knowledge already exists in individual experiences. If shared, it can benefit so many more.
Practical Support for Citizens improving their hometowns
Tell us what your city is up against
The issue that you are facing in your town is unique in its manifestation. The people, the area, the geography, and even what action might be helpful. However, there is a lot one can learn from both the experiences as well as the know how from what people in other cities have done.
Fill out this form so that we can help you with the years of knowledge that we have gathered and connect you with others that may have tried something similar in their contexts.
Maybe in that experience you will be better able to help your own city.
Tools you can use
Tool 1 / The City Knowledge Barometer
Type in any Indian city and see what its Wikipedia page actually contains — how much is written, how well it's sourced, who has been editing it. Evaluate your city's wikipedia page, can compare to other cities and then tells you what a citizen can do to fill the gap.
Tool 2 /
The City Bus Stop Audit Kit
A survey tool for citizens to assess whether a bus stop actually works — shelter, seating, information, access. Designed so a group of few people can cover a whole route in a morning. It would help you have an organised record of your city's bus stops.
Tool 3 / What your Municipality owes you
Twenty-five states have a public disclosure law. Twelve have notified the rules. This checklist tells you the key documents your city government is required to put out, and what to write when it hasn't. Help you hold your city government accountable.
Built in one city. Made to be adapted in the next. Download, edit, put your own name on it.
Three Groups
Many Approaches
LEARN FROM OTHER CITY EXPERIENCES on what they solved for and how they went about HAVING THEIR VOICES HEARD AND HAVING A SAY IN WHAT HAPPENS IN THEIR CITY
Udaipur: A Spark of Hope
The Challenge
A lake that is central to the economy and livelihood of city residents but is not clean.
How citizens addressed the challenge
Through weekly clean up drives, conducting citizen audits of the lake perimeter and increasing awareness of the geography and ecology of the lake.
What other cities can take away
How to organise consistent clean up drives, how tools like PILs can help with lake restoration, how citizens can hold knowledge for cities
Coimbatore Lakes: Lost and Found
The Challenge
There was little recorded knowledge of the lakes and their importance in the local environment
How citizens addressed the challenge
Mapped the lake system in the region, did massive consistent clean up drives, trained youth to become stewards of the ecosystem
What other cities can take away
How to mobilize and build local communities to take change. How to leverage technology.
Navigating spaces of Citizen engagement
The Challenge
Decision making is often done without the active participation of citizens
How citizens addressed the challenge
Citizens actively created their own spaces to bring to the policy discourse issues affecting them. They were able to organise and impact policy.
What other cities can take away
How to create spaces so that government takes notice of the issues facing your city.
Connect Your City to the Network
Are you an active citizen, independent researcher, or local group documenting civic gaps, tracking local services, or pushing for change in your city? You don’t have to figure it out from scratch. Compare notes, adapt tools, and share what works with peers addressing similar civic issues across Indian cities.challenges across India.
Write to us at info@nagrika.org