Vivek Maru
Vivek Maru is an American social entrepreneur and human rights activist who is a pioneer in the field of legal empowerment. He is currently the CEO of Namati, which he founded in 2011. Namati and its partners have supported cadres of grassroots legal advocates – sometimes known as "barefoot lawyers" or "community paralegals"– in ten countries. These advocates equip their communities to protect common lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to healthcare and citizenship. In a 2014 article, Maru complained that "when world governments adopted development goals 15 years ago, law and justice were left out." As a result, while major progress has been made in the fields of health, education, and the reduction of poverty, access to law and justice has lagged behind. He asserted that all people should have the right to information about the laws and institutions they live under, the right to a legal identity, the right to have their property ownership respected, the right to participate in the shaping of laws and policies, and the right to a fair legal resolution of problems and conflicts. Early life and education Maru's parents were immigrants from India; his grandfather was a Gandhian who ran a