From Barbados, Ronelle King is a multi-award-winning Gender Justice Activist and the Founder of Life In Leggings, a Caribbean Alliance against gender-based violence.
In 2016, Ronelle founded the viral “#LifeInLeggings” hashtag which was mobilized to create a safe space for women who had experienced sexual violence. Women, encouraged by solidarity, were empowered to speak out on their social media platforms about their experiences. The movement quickly evolved into a grassroots organization with a mandate of reducing the region’s pervasive sexual assault culture and helping to eradicate regional occurrences of gender-based violence.
In 2017, Ronelle collaborated with civil society organizations in seven Caribbean countries to execute the Reclaim Our Streets: Women’s Solidarity March — the region’s first simultaneous and largest civil society-led march against street harassment.
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 to pursue careers in politics. The initiative was awarded a 2021 Nelson Mandela-Graca Machel Innovation Award in the category ‘Democratizing governance processes and systems’.
In acknowledgement of her dedication to reducing gender inequality in her country and region, Ronelle was awarded the 2017 Youth Hero Award, the 2018 Queen’s Young Leader Award by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, the 2022 Future Island Leader Award and the 2022 Ignite Caribbean 30 under 30 Changemaker Award.