Aila Barbour, 26 year old Black Queer Womxn, has had a deep desire to help others since the age of twelve. Raised in Tacoma she left for Seattle in 2007 to study psychology at UW Seattle with the goal of being a therapist. After graduating she worked for a local homeless organization for nearly four years before losing housing herself for two years. Through her experience with the broken health care and non profit systems she sought more direct ways of change.
After attending her first protest in 2012, she began to organize for a systematic change to a Capitalist society with a focus on prison abolition and homelessness. She often expresses this through art and media from Outside Agitators 206 to working with all Black organizers in Seattle Black Book and United Against Systemic Racism. Involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement and with campaigns such as the #NoNewYouthJail, Aila has struggled alongside Ending the Prison Industrial Complex, Northwest Detention Center Resistance, BAYAN USA, and Women of Color for Systemic Change.