History

SAAVE Texas was first founded as SAAVE DFW (South Asian American Voter Education + Engagement + Empowerment)by a group of moms who wanted to channel their energy  after the 2016 election. At first it was simply just meeting to vent. Their involvement in local grassroots groups shed light on the need to register Asians. They came to learn that only 50% of Asians are registered to vote and less than 50% actually vote who are registered. This inspired them to start registering South Asians in places not usually exposed to voter registration.

With the voter registration drives they began to hear the concerns of the community.  The stories of hate crimes became overwhelming. It was through those stories that the group decided to form a formal group to advocate our concerns on the issues that faced our community. It was clear that our community was often over looked because of low voter turnout. That inspired our second goal to educate our community to increase voter turnout.

Our group remained non partisan for a year. We built our guiding principles that were  deeply rooted in progressive values . It was at that turning point that we developed relationships with progressive organizations and became the largest progressive South Asian group in the state of Texas. Data shows we are the fastest growing minority population. In the coming years we will have a tremdous influence on elections. Our focus is on the growth and power of our numbers to influence elections in Texas.  We support and advocate for candidates who align with our values.

Key members of our team – Chanda Parbhoo, Sangeeta Elhence, Sonia Elhence, Sharmila Bose, Vineeta Walia, Divya Chaturvedi, Rachna Agrawal, Anadil Afridi, Dilshad Karim, Kamini Mamdani, Rekha Shenoy, Ron Bose, Gans Subramanian, Sanjiv Gupta, Gowri Sharma, Aassia Haq, Swarna Maduri