3-12-2025 10:46am

What's My Role? Social Change in Crisis and Beyond Speeker: Deepa Iyer

Ypsilanti PressLLC Editor

Deepa Iyer

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Deepa Iyer

“What’s My Role? Social Change in Crisis and Beyond"
Christobel Kotelawela Weerasinghe Lecture and Dinner with Deepa Iyer
Join CEW+ on April 3rd for dinner and a discussion with Deepa Iyer, author of Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection. Iyer will provide a roadmap for engaging in effective and sustainable social change efforts as individuals and organizations during crises and beyond.

All are welcome! Registration required for food planning. If you have questions please contact Advocacy Program Manager Liz DeBetta, Ph.D. at ldebetta@umich.edu.
April 3, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
School of Social Work
1080 S University, ECC Room 1840

Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Her work is rooted in Asian American, South Asian, Muslim, and Arab communities where she spent fifteen years in policy advocacy and coalition building in the wake of the September 11th attacks and ensuing backlash. Currently, Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, where she conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is This podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks.

Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press, 2015), chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Deepa’s most recent book (2022), a guide based on the social change ecosystem map that she created, is called Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection. Her debut children’s picture book, We Are The Builders, will be released in the fall of 2024.

Deepa serves on the advisory council of the Emergent Fund, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland in the Asian American Studies and Public Policy programs. An immigrant who moved to Kentucky from Kerala (India), Deepa graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School and Vanderbilt University.

This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Christobel Kotelawela Weerasinghe Fund of CEW+. CEW+ Leadership Council Member Emerita Menakka Bailey created the fund in honor of her mother, Christobel Kotelawela Weerasinghe, a lifelong advocate of cross-cultural dialogue and advancement for women.

The lecture is also supported by a partnership with ENGAGE at the School of Social Work and funding from the CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund which promotes diversity and cultural awareness by bringing women leaders to campus.