Kaya Rial
Kaya Rial
Organizing Director
Kaya (they/them) is a Filipinx creative, graphic designer, and organizer. They immigrated to Chicago in 2012 to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated in 2017 with a BFA in Architecture. Their ancestral home can be traced to the Bicol region of the Philippines.
As Organizing Director, Kaya leads AFIRE’s mobilization efforts: monitoring organizing and advocacy efforts happening within coalitions, and creating spaces for community leaders to plug into civic engagement and campaign work.
In community, they have design-collaborated with Grow-Op Chicago, a community advocacy group and seed-starting initiative; organized with Non-Monog Baddies, a queer and POC-centered non-monogamous/polyamorous discussion and support group; and are a founding member of the now defunct House of Huitlacooch, a QTPOC-centered kink and BDSM arts and organizing collective. They have been an active farmer volunteer with Cedillo’s Fresh Produce, a family-run urban farm based in Englewood, and OTIS (Only Things In Season) Fresh Farm, a cooperatively-owned farm located in Back of the Yards. Their little joys in life include belting to power ballads, catching up on readings, filling up a page in their sketchbook, moon-gazing, sleeping in, and coming home to their 6-year-old Dachshund/Cavalier mix, Mylo.