Vivek Maru

Vivek (@VivekHMaru) founded Namati (namati.org) in 2011 to grow the movement for legal empowerment around the world. Namati and its partners have built cadres of grassroots legal advocates – also known as “community paralegals”– in ten countries. The advocates have worked with over 65,000 people to protect community lands, enforce environmental law, and secure basic rights to healthcare and citizenship.

Namati convenes the Global Legal Empowerment Network, more than 1,500 groups from every region in the world who are learning from one another and collaborating on common challenges. This community successfully advocated for inclusion of access to justice in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

From 2003 to 2007, Vivek co-founded and co-directed the Sierra Leonean organization Timap for Justice, which has been recognized by the International Crisis Group, Transparency International, and President Jimmy Carter as a pioneering model for delivering justice services in the context of a weak state and a plural legal system.

From 2008 to 2011, he served as senior counsel in the Justice Reform Group of the World Bank. His work focused on rule of law reform and governance, primarily in West Africa and South Asia.

Vivek was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2014 and a "legal rebel" by the American Bar Association in 2015. In 2016, Vivek, Namati, and the Global Legal Empowerment Network received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In 2017, the Schwab Foundation named Vivek and Sonkita Conteh, director of Namati – Sierra Leone, two of its Social Entrepreneurs of the Year.