GenZ Girl Gang
Founder
Having seen the power of sisterhood transform her own life, Deja got started translating her organizing skills to the digital space to cultivate a powerful group of young womxn and fems who are redefining sisterhood for a new generation. The team has grown to include leaders across the country spanning high school to post-grad and over 11,000 community members. Together they work to advance collaboration culture, build power in personal networks, and create strategies that push the way we use social media as a community building tool.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Youth Leader, Board Of Directions PPAZ, Catalyst for Change Award
The following year in the wake of the election, Deja scaled up her work. In efforts to protect Title X funding (which she and millions of other low-income people used to access birth control with no-copay) she confronted her senator at a town hall. The video of this confrontation quickly went viral pushing Deja to the forefront of the reproductive justice movement. Consequently, she was afforded the opportunity to share her story live on CNN with Don Lemon, was dubbed "The New Face of Planned Parenthood" by the Washington Post, and lobbied elected officials on Capitol Hill. She also partnered with Planned Parenthood to run trainings, speak at events, and served on the Planned Parenthood Arizona Board of Directors. As a Youth Director, Deja was a voting member of PPAZ's 501c3 Board of Directors. In her time on the board she reviewed and approved budgets while leading diversity and inclusion conversations and efforts. Most recently, she received the Planned Parenthood's Catalyst for Change Award.
El Rio Rhap
Co-Founder
Using her new found platform to create lasting change in her hometown, Deja co-founded the El Rio Reproductive Health Access Project in 2017 alongside untraditional youth leaders. The team included teen moms, formerly incarcerated youth, youth who overcame substance abuse, and homeless youth like herself. These teens became peer sex educators and run free teen clinics every week in which transportation, birth control services, STI testing, and PrEP are all provided to young people at absolutely no cost to them. They’ve since served over 17,000 young people.
Tucson Unified School District
Sex Education Curriculum Review Board
Deja was raised by a single mother, but due to issues of substance abuse found herself homeless at just 15 years old. Deja used this adversity to fuel her activism. Seeing how her school's outdated sex education system disadvantaged her and students like her she began her fight for comprehensive sex education reform and embarked on the organizing campaign that would spark a lifelong passion. After 6 months of organizing, storytelling, and lobbying school board members, Deja and her peers won a unanimous victory in favor of comprehensive sex education in their city's largest school district.
