On October 29th, Maryam Judar, Executive Director of the Citizen Advocacy Group, spoke at Chicago’s OpenGov Hack Night.
The Citizen Advocacy Center is dedicated to building democracy for the 21st century by strengthening the citizenry’s capacities, resources, and institutions for self-governance.
The Citizen Advocacy Center, based in Elmhurst Illinois, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that tries to build democracy by building participation in the government decision making process.
The Citizen Advocacy Center works with a number of different clients. They help residents get around the barriers that governments sometimes use to keep information from public view. They help journalist vet issues they may be covering and conduct training session on civic education.
Because they’re in the suburbs, Citizen Advocacy Center does a lot of work in the ‘collar counties’ of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties.
The other major thing that the Citizen Advocacy Center does is litigate. When government agencies interpret the Freedom of Information Act in ways that prevent the public from getting information – the CAC will assist with helping residents navigate the process of going through the appeals process.
You can see Judar’s presentation along with the Q&A session below
