About:

Angellica Aribam is a political activist working on issues of gender, race, and the democratisation of politics for almost a decade now. Hailing from the marginalised north-eastern region of India, she has been at the receiving end of racial injustice since her childhood. She joined politics at the age of 20 believing it to be the best way to change the status quo. In 2012, she became the first student from the northeastern region to be elected in the Delhi University Executive Committee, India’s prominent student organisation. She was a National General Secretary of the students' wing of the Indian National Congress, India’s oldest political party, for half a decade. She was named one of Forbes India's "30 Under 30" in 2017 for her work on policy and politics.
During 2018-2019, she was an inaugural Fellow for women political leaders at Vital Voices - an American NGO by Hillary Clinton - where she was mentored by former Prime Ministers of Canada, New Zealand, and Peru; and trained by professors of Harvard Kennedy School.
Based on her lived experiences as a first generation woman in politics, she founded Femme First Foundation, a non-partisan non-profit organisation, to amplify women's political leadership in India in 2019. Her work has been featured widely by both national and international media. She also served in the Expert Panel of Stanford University's Impact Labs in 2022. Angellica is also a certified Public Narrative coach and has conducted workshops with Prof Marshall Ganz and team for students at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has spoken at colleges and universities across the world including University College of London, Graduate Institute (Geneva), IIT, Delhi University amongst others.
With a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi and a Masters' degree in Public Policy from Peking University, Angellica is on a quest for learning. As a staunch advocate for gender and racial rights, she regularly writes for various publications including The Indian Express, Times of India amongst others. In her free time, she loves to cook, read, and write.