Elaine Mekdela Ejigu, preferred name Mekdela, is an Ethiopian-American writer, advocate, and organizer. Mekdela graduated from UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Legal Studies and Feminist Studies with Honors. Mekdela was a student organizer and leader during her time at UCSC. She was the Co-Chair for the Committee for Justice in Palestine (CJP), a branch of the national Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) network. Mekdela co-organized the 2014 Divestment (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions or BDS) campaign that resulted in the passage of a Divestment Bill in the UCSC Student Union Assembly (SUA). The bill was overturned before the SUA reinstated it in 2016. In 2015, Mekdela was a finalist for the Davis Putter Scholarship for students working for social change. Though not received, Mekdela advanced to the finalist round after an interview about the work of the Committee for Justice in Palestine (CJP). She received the Ellis Injury Law Diversity Scholarship for her essay on the merits of affirmative action in 2015.
Mekdela went on to become a community organizer in her home region of Los Angeles, CA. She began working with her own community of second-generation Ethiopian-Americans to promote leadership and creative storytelling with the Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship in Los Angeles. Shortly after, Mekdela began organizing as a fellow and AmeriCorps member with Public Allies Los Angeles, an organization that trains leaders of color and promotes community service. During this time, she worked on a campaign to pass affordable housing policies with the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH). This campaign saw the passage of the historic Measures H, HHH, and JJJ. These measures provide crucial funding for affordable housing units in Los Angeles. Mekdela is currently working for Environmental Justice with Black Women for Wellness in Los Angeles. In this position, she works to prevent plastic and water pollution and advocates for Beauty Justice. Her Beauty Justice work includes advocating to phase out toxic chemicals in beauty products marketed towards Black women and women of color. Mekdela also advocates to change racist and fatphobic beauty standards that disproportionately harm Black women.
Mekdela is an advocate for immigrants, refugees, women's rights, human rights, and racial justice. In 2018, she received her Master of Arts (MA) in Social and Public Policy from the University of Leeds, where she learned more about how public policies shape our realities and have the power to create social change. Mekdela is the author of "Plus-Size: A Memoir of Pop Culture, Fatphobia, and Social Change." She contributed the chapter, "Black Immigrant Communities: Underserved and Misrepresented in the United States," to the African Studies anthology, "Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism." Her work has been featured in the North England Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Pennycress Zine. Previously, Mekdela was a news reporter for UCSC's City on A Hill Press and a writer for The Third World and Native American Student Press Collective.
​LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaineejigu