Refilwe Gqajela
About
Refilwe Gqajela is a formerly undocumented South African labor and community organizer from Oakland, California. She has a bachelor's degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California San Diego and has experience working on political campaigns throughout the state of California. Refilwe’s lived experiences has led to organizing understandings of: undocumented communities as system impacted i.e criminalization and prison to deportation pipeline, shelters/transitional housing programs as spaces for intervention as it relates to how they can perpetuate carceral realities and institutionalize gender, and youth as active participants in liberation movements. Refilwe’s work addresses the materially disadvantaged realities of Black/migrant communities, highlights the impacts of and struggles against systemic antiBlack capitalism, and explores the ways in which marginalized communities sustain and organize themselves.