IRADA is a registered, civil society organization that works for catalyzing participatory reforms and development through evidence-based research, proactive policy advocacy, and vigorous capacity-building initiatives. It is a successor to IRADA trust set up in 2011 by senior journalists and legal experts to promote: inclusivity and pluralism; transparency and governance; freedom of expression and media development; rule of law and legislative reforms. That trust, however, had to be dissolved in 2022 under the coercive regulations brought in by the government of Pakistan to control and curb civil society organizations working on the promotion of civil liberties.
In 2023, three young women closely related to the two of the founders of the trust, decided to revive it with a new registration. One of them had recently graduated in law from the Warwick University, in the United Kingdom; the other had gained serious experience of working on gender-related issues after completing a master’s in Gender Studies from the Punjab University and the third had accumulated vast experience of project management by working at several renowned non-government organizations. The task ahead of them was extremely arduous: to pass through massive government scrutiny and large spools of bureaucratic red-tape to get the new organisation registered. It took them more than a year, countless rounds of government offices and several revisions of their founding documents to get it done. IRADA finally started functioning as a foundation in July 2024.
To ensure continuity between IRADA, the trust, and IRADA, the foundation, two of the former’s founders became the patron and the executive director of the latter.