Rucha Chitnis

Rucha Chitnis is the Director of Communications at the Disability Rights Fund and Disability Rights Advocacy Fund. She also serves on the management team, leading the Funds’ communications strategy that centers the power and solutions of grassroots groups and movements led by persons with disabilities who are advocating for human rights and inclusion globally.

Rucha is a communications strategist, photojournalist, and an emerging filmmaker. As a documentarian, her stories center the counter narratives of grassroots feminists and frontline movements rising and advocating for systemic shifts in the face of climate chaos and economic inequities, flipping the script of the dominant culture that erases and dehumanizes. Rucha is a fellow at the International Women’s Media Foundation and the producer of In the Land of My Ancestors, an award-winning documentary short that celebrates the living legacy of beloved Ohlone elder, Ann Marie Sayers.

A graduate of the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, Rucha serves as an adviser to Vikalp Sangam (meaning a confluence of alternatives in Hindi), a network of over 70 grassroots groups and people’s movements in India that amplifies stories of alternative economies, food and climate justice.