Meet Daeja, newest member of PPT and our first digital organizer!
We’ve hired a digital organizer! PPT is growing its organizational capacity bringing its staff from four to five. Daeja has organized in Pittsburgh for 15 years and founded Pittsburgh Feminists for Intersectionality in 2017, a base that she has used to organize across several issues— racial justice, disability justice, justice for those in the carceral system and housing justice, all through the lens of intersectionality. Throughout the last few years Daeja has worked as a communications and event director for several campaigns, welcoming in a fresh legislative perspective to her work. We are excited to bring Daeja’s organizing, political and communications skills into the fold at PPT to strengthen our membership base, grow our digital presence, and grow our work statewide.
Now is the time. Why is now the time? We are in a growth moment here at PPT. With this new role we can reach so many more people in our community and bring them into this growing movement without skipping a beat! With this new role we can focus more on building relationships in our community and turning that into growth in our membership. We can use the tools we have at our disposal more effectively to stimulate that growth. We can refine and strengthen our organizing with more capacity to use these tools throughout our work. PPT is doing so many great things with our members and board and we want YOU to hear about it and JOIN US! This is the way we do it.
Learn more about Daeja in her own words…
What is a girl to do when she’s been organizing for fifteen years? Try something new, of course! I’m the first to admit that I have a lot to learn about advocating for better transit in our county, but one thing I do know is my ability to advocate for intersectional issues. Here at PPT we know that transit is about housing, it’s about class struggle, it’s about food justice, and it’s about equity in all of these things and more. In my time as an organizer I’ve advocated for many things that I know can get better, and transit is no different. It can get better. It will get better. I am here to be a part of that journey.
Some questions that may help you get to know me:
Who do you consider yourself to be?
To most I am a poet, an organizer and a bipolar girl telling her story for change. To myself, I’m just discovering how not to be lost with everybody else.
What is your organizing passion point?
This is a tough one! I’d say I spend a lot of time organizing at the intersections of radical mental health and racial justice. This includes justice for our unhoused, those in the carceral system, our youth, and so many of us disabled folks who are unseen due to invisible illnesses and conditions.
Would you rather listen to music, a podcast, or public radio?
While I chose this question I think it is unfair. I am a complex person.
To work: music
To cook/clean: music or podcast
To think: public radio
To have an existential crisis: all three on shuffle so I don’t see it coming
Sweet or savory?
Savory, always.
What is your favorite vacation?
My secret cabin in a small town a couple of hours away. I read, write, hike, kayak and drink champagne in the hot tub. I also try a new coffee shop every time — but I only like one grocery store! I love water.
What is your theory of change?
Another unfair question. My short answer: we are only powerless if we do nothing.
Cats, dogs, or snails?
I love but am allergic to cats. I cannot take care of a dog, I promise you. I love a good snail.
Hot or cold?
I would live on the equator with a bathing suit on.
Most recent achievements?
I won a thumb war with a teenager.
More about Daeja
Daeja grew up in Pittsburgh’s Northside, in what is now known as the Perry South neighborhood. Her family did not own a car and her mother often carted her and her three brothers onto the bus to grocery shop, go to the movies, doctors appointments, and frankly any other reason a person would have to leave the house daily. As a teenager Daeja took two buses to get to work, often waking up over an hour early and arriving an hour early to work due to the lack of buses running in the evening and on weekends. This has shaped how Daeja has viewed transit—until she moved to other major metropolitan areas that have robust transit systems. Daeja believes that we, too, can have a robust transit system that supports workers, our unhoused, our disabled, those who do not have the ability or privilege to drive, our elderly population, our youth—everyone.