Ronelle King
Founder & Director
Ronelle King is a multi-award-winning Afro-Barbadian Gender Justice Activist and Caribbean Feminist.
In 2016, she created the hashtag #lifeinleggings and started a viral social media campaign that empowered Caribbean women who were survivors of abuse to share their experiences, find solidarity, and raise awareness about the prevalence of gender-based violence in the region. The hashtag led to the creation of Life in Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender-based Violence; a youth-led organization that aims to eradicate rape culture and regional occurrences of violence against women and girls.
Since then, Ronelle has spearheaded several successful initiatives. Notably, the 2017 Reclaim Our Streets: Women’s Solidarity March – the region’s first simultaneous and largest civil society-led grassroots march against street harassment and other forms of gender-based violence. Across seven Caribbean countries, hundreds of people marched in solidarity with survivors and in remembrance of victims of gender-based violence, advocating for safer public spaces for women and girls.
In 2018, she co-curated Insurgents: Redefining Rebellion in Barbados, an interactive exhibition that debuted on International Women’s Day 2019, showcasing the intrinsic activism of Barbadians as proactive instigators of social change. Ronelle co-authored an article about the exhibition, which was published in Museum International‘s Museum & Gender issue the following year.
In 2019, she conceptualized and founded Pink Parliament, an initiative that seeks to increase women’s participation in decision-making spaces by encouraging young women and girls between the ages of 14-20 to consider careers in politics. The initiative was awarded the 2021 Nelson Mandela-Graca Machel Innovation Award for democratizing governance processes and systems.
In 2021, she founded Redefining Masculinities, a gender-transformative initiative that seeks to reduce occurrences of violence by encouraging men and boys to interrogate patriarchal masculinities and its negative implications on the lives of women, children, men, and non-binary people in order to develop non-oppressive expressions of masculinity and cultivate healthier relationships.
Ronelle currently serves as a UN Young Leader for the SDGs for the UN Youth Office (formerly the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth). She previously served as an inaugural UN Youth Advisory Group Member for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean under the United Nations Multi-Country Office and as a Youth, Peace, and Security Support Group Member for the UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean.
Through her work, she has been a driving force in highlighting key issues pertaining to gender rights, youth development, and the protection of marginalized communities. She views her work as helping to create an inclusive, sustainable, and equitable region for all.
She was awarded the 2017 Youth Hero (Female) Award by the Barbados Youth Development Council, the 2018 Queen’s Young Leader Award by the late Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, the 2022 Future Island Leader Award by Island Innovation and the Clinton Global Initiative, and the 2022 Ignite Caribbean 30 under 30 Changemaker Award by the Institute of Caribbean Studies, the 2023 Caribbean Youth of the Year Award by the Caribbean Regional Youth Council, and the Phoenix Award by Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment during the National Youth Awards, in acknowledgement of her dedication to reducing gender inequality in her country and region. Additionally, she was recognized in the Global 100 under 40 list for The Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD).
Most recently, Ronelle graduated from the Obama Foundation Scholars program as part of the 2023-24 cohort. During her time at Columbia University, she developed a program focused on gender and climate to explore the intersection between the environmental crisis and gender-based violence.
Life In Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender-based Violence 