Senior Statewide Organizer, Integrated Voter Engagement
Office: Los Angeles
Jesús Ramón Villalba Gastélum is a Statewide Organizer at the forefront of CIPC’s Integrated Voter Engagement program.
Before joining CIPC, Jesús Ramón served as a Community Outreach Assistant and later Case Manager at Friends for Injured Workers. For four years, he worked with primarily immigrant and Spanish-speaking community members, ensuring they had the tools to get back on their feet after life-altering workplace accidents.
Jesús Ramón has also been a community mobilizer for years. With roots in the youth climate movement, he served as founding organizer for Youth Climate Strike Los Angeles. He has led numerous demonstrations and other efforts to ensure young voices are heard at the local, state, and national levels. On Sept. 20, 2019, he led the planning and execution of Los Angeles’ participation in the historic Global Climate Strike, bringing over 20,000 students to downtown Los Angeles to demand greater climate action. That same year, he sat in the gallery as the U.S. House or Representatives passed the 2019 DREAM Act, met with several presidential candidates, and dedicated hundreds of hours to further various pro-immigrant campaigns. At the young age of 16, the CHIRLA’s Los Angeles office became his home away from home, where he found community and direction serving those around him.
While continuing to further the climate and immigrant rights movements, he is also pursuing a BA in Spanish with a minor in Portuguese at California State University, Stanislaus. Jesús Ramón enjoys a variety of activities such as gardening and baking. A poet, his piece “The Plums will Bloom Again” was featured as Staff Favorite in CSU Stanislaus’ Spring Edition of Penumbra. Guided by the ideal of Tikún Olam, he finds inspiration and motivation from his friends and colleagues and seeks to do his part in making the world a better place for everyone.