As Communications Manager, Sibel operates CEJA’s outward-facing communications and works with program staff, coalition members, and allies to grow its digital community.
Prior to joining CEJA, Sibel worked as the David Brower Center’s Communications and Development Manager leading the fundraising and communications of a community institution with a public gallery featuring art used for environmental activism. Her preceding role as Give2Asia’s Senior Marketing Associate advanced a decolonial vision of philanthropy by directing funds toward hyperlocal organizers across the Asia Pacific region. Having lived on four continents and participated in a range of social movements, she is humbled by the complexities of intersectional politics and works to decenter her voice as a western passport-holder in the midst of stark global cultural imperialism.
Sibel graduated from Connecticut College with a B.A. in International Relations and Cultural Anthropology before moving to Washington, D.C. and becoming disillusioned with state-led politics as a vehicle for change. She acquired her Masters of Social Sciences as a co-batched degree from the University of Freiburg, University of Cape Town, and Jawaharlal Nehru University and wrote her thesis on feminist comedy as a platform for empowerment. Most recently, a COVID-inspired return to academia led her to a second Masters from the University of Cape Town in Environmental and Geographical Sciences, where she studied southern urbanisms. Her thesis “Food, Love, and Resistance: Lessons on Reimagining Social Reproduction from East Bay Housing Cooperatives” examines the power of collective self-governance as a response to urban crisis.
Sibel’s personal projects include facilitating a capitalism course at an autonomous university for political education and building community through book clubs. A California native with relentlessly nomadic tendencies, Sibel is now rooting back in her home context and can be found in the East Bay playing in nature, soaking in her co-op’s hot tub, and hunting for public art.