Lecture Series with Indo-Pacific Leaders

Growing a Social Movement: The Role of Alternative Media

This video has Japanese subtitles. Go to Youtube Help for more details.

Speaker: Aruna Roy (2000 Ramon Magsaysay awardee, India)
Moderator: Cheche Lazaro
Language: English with Japanese subtitles
Release Date: February 3, 6-7 pm Japan Time, 2022
Co-organizer/Program Partner: Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation
Co-organizer: Shahani Associates
Sponsors: Japan Foundation Asia Center Grant Program for Promotion of Cultural Collaboration, MRA Foundation, Tanaka UK Japan Educational Foundation

In this session, social and political activist Aruna Roy, 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, will speak about contemporary challenges in emergent social movements that advocate for engaged citizenship and ethical governance. In 2021, different areas of Asia are struggling with the right to information (RTI), and part of the complexity is the tsunami of information, or mis-information, arriving through mainstream as well as alternative media channels. Roy will share what lessons from India’s RTI movement can illuminate the role of Asia’s public leaders and especially their use of crucial information channels as they work with communities to exercise their democratic right to good governance.

Aruna Roy

Aruna Roy (2000) was a civil servant from 1968 to 1975 but resigned from the Indian Administrative Service to work with the rural poor in Rajasthan. She collectively formed the MKSS Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (Organisation for the Empowerment of Workers and Peasants) in 1990. The MKSS played a pivotal role in drafting and advocating for the Right to Information (RTI) Law which was passed by the Indian Parliament in 2005. The RTI is the first national legislation in which a peoples’ campaign played such a significant role from enunciating the principles to drafting the law and over seeing it through parliament. She is currently the President of the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) and has received many international awards and has been listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by the TIME Magazine for 2011. More information about Aruna Roy is here, https://rmaward.asia/awardee/roy-aruna

Cheche Lazaro

Cheche Lazaro (Cecilia Aldaba Lim-Lazaro) is an acclaimed Filipino broadcast journalist and the founding president of Probe Productions Inc. Lazaro began her career as a reporter for ABS-CBN until 1988 when she left to create her own production company with the help of fellow journalists Luchi Cruz-Valdez and, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Maria Ressa. At Probe Productions, Lazaro has produced multiple documentaries such as 5 and Up for ABC, The Probe Team, I-Witness, and Cheche Lazaro Presents for GMA Network. She has been a trustee of RMAF since 2020.

*The webinar series Leaders Shaping the Future of the Indo-Pacific seeks to introduce new leaders, ideas and initiatives that will shape the Indo-Pacific region in the coming years.

Lecture Series with Indo-Pacific LeadersLecture Series with Indo-Pacific Leaders