Priya Varadarajan

Priya has over 15 years of experience working with government, trade relations, organisation building and strategy, regulation, gender programme implementation and grant making.

Priya is the Founder of Durga, a citizen sector organisation that builds gender justice in public spaces across Bangalore (India). She has set up the organisation, its programmes and a team that works on interesting and innovative approaches to co-owning public spaces by citizens, communities and governments, so that women’s safety is no longer a woman’s problem alone.

Prior to joining Co-Impact, Priya anchored Gender Justice and Rights to Persons with Disabilities at the Azim Premji Foundation (APF), one of the largest philanthropies in India. Here, she contributed to small to large Indian civil society organisations build their gender programmes and implementation, along with enabling them seek grants from APF and the larger donor community.

Priya holds a Masters in Women and Gender Studies and is also a trained Accountant (Chartered Accountant). She expresses her feminist side best through her writing and has been regularly writing for online magazines. Recently she has started reviewing books on the issue by new-gen writers. A complete Bangalorean at heart, Priya loves to travel around to learn local cultures when she is not thinking “gender”. In this world full of trauma and vulnerability, Priya receives solace being a dog-mom to her rescued Indie feeling reassured that all is not lost yet!