The Founder

Ronelle King
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Ronelle King is a multi-award-winning Afro-Barbadian Youth, Gender and Social Development Consultant, Human Rights Activist and Caribbean feminist.

In 2016, she founded the viral cyber-feminist movement #lifeinleggings, which later evolved into a grassroots organization, Life In Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender-based Violence. As Director, her role is to ensure that the organization fulfils its commitment to reducing the region’s pervasive rape culture and helping to eradicate regional occurrences of gender-based violence.

In 2017, she conceptualized and executed 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 which make public spaces unsafe for women and girls.

In 2018, she co-curated Insurgents: Redefining Rebellion In Barbados, an interactive exhibition which was launched on International Women’s Day 2019 and sought to highlight the intrinsic activism of Barbadians as proactive instigators of social change.

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 a 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 toxic masculinity 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 Youth Advisory Group Member for the United Nations Office for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean and as one of seventeen Young Leaders for the SDGs for the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. She formerly served 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 Her Majesty, 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, 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.