MENU
Group 2 Created with Sketch Beta.

Aruna Dholakia

Executive Secretary and DirectorKutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS)

Biography

Aruna Dholakiya started her journey with KMVS at the age of 19, she was a feisty full-timer, living on her own, organising women
artisans in Nakhatrana Block, 85 kms away from her natal home. In 2018, she was appointed
KMVS’s Executive Secretary. In long years devoted to women’s rights, Aruna has
done it all, ground up and top down, walking the talk with women in the heat and dust of
villages, blocks, city. She has organised scattered women into purposeful
communities and registered their own independent collectives; expanded KMVS’s work into
new urban spaces for land rights, housing rights, rights of female sex workers; and worked
to build a gender-rights perspective within traditional caste-panchayats. Recognised as a
formidable champion for women’s empowerment on the Kutch landscape,
currently leads KMVS, as part of a three-member core management team, continuing to take
its grounded advocacy lessons to national and international forums;.