Maya Bhardwaj is an organizer, visual artist, and musician currently based in Mexico City. She is the National Coordinator of It Takes Roots, a united front project made up of the Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Right to the City Alliance. She also currently serves as a member of the Women’s Organizing Network and of Northern Manhattan is Not For Sale (both in New York City), and supports organizing and collaborative art by queer working-class people of color in NYC and Detroit. Maya began organizing at schools as a student in her hometown of Detroit and as a debate coach at urban schools in Chicago agitating for more resources for students of color and fighting the school-to-prison pipeline. Since then, she has been a Florida Deputy Regional Field Director in 2012 for President Obama’s re-election campaign, the Communities of Color Co-Director in Minnesota for the 2014 Democratic Farmer Labor Coordinated Campaign, and the Manhattan and Housing Lead Organizer from 2015-2018 with Faith in New York.
She served as a staff member at Haiyya from 2013-2014, shepherding communications, training, and data. Maya is also a nomad who has left pieces of her heart in over 40 countries and has supported organizing in Argentina, France, Cambodia, and Mexico; a painter, violinist, and singer passionate about collective art for liberation; and a scuba diver on her way to a divemaster. Maya received her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, Political Science and premedical studies from Northwestern University.