Fikile Vilakazi has an Honors Degree in Development Studies which she acquired at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. She has been involved with development work since 1993 when she was a student at University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Since then, she has been actively involved in student politics, gender, feminism and women's rights activism; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex activism in South Africa, Africa and Europe.
She has a passion for grassroots development and believes in participatory development that works with people rather than for people. She was born in Mofolo North, in Soweto, a black township outside of Johannesburg, Gauteng in South Africa.