advocacy work

Each one teach one

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Each one teach one 〰️

Gabe's vow of sobriety, incarceration experience and discontent with the corporate pop music world inspired him to pursue secular humanitarian causes in many different capacities.

People's Movements

After the release of Vital Nonsense in 2009 Rosales took part in the protests at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the “Bail Out the People” Movement, advocating for US citizen loan forgiveness as opposed to wallstreet bailouts. This event was historically noted as the first time a modern social network (Twitter) was used to aid protesters. Later the social media platform was accused of "obstructing justice" by the Pittsburgh Police Department and users were arrested.

In 2009 Gabe joined the Universal Zulu Nation, the community that originated and founded Hip Hop culture in 1973 that changed the world. As a long time Calafia Zulu chapter member, Gabe participated in many community-service events and causes, earning his patches by tradition. When the Universal Zulu Nation splintered in 2016, Rosales continued his work as a Zulu Union member.

Rosales took part in the Occupy LA Movement marching with Labor Unions and Financial Institution Accountability organizations in 2011. In 2013, Gabe rallied with Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC) center in Los Angeles petitioning at Santa Monica City Hall to continue after school programs for at-risk youth in the Los Angeles community.

Rosales has hosted public radio shows (Music to Resist By at KPFK) promoting resistance music from around the world. With his local Hip Hop Collective Zulu Union chapter, the Calafia Zulus, he has facilitated events for feeding the homeless, back-to-school supply drives, and toy drives for needy children during the winter seasons. With his time and donated music he has helped support the annual canned food drive in Los Angeles for Hip Hop for Humanity collective.

Humanitarian Aid

As the facilitator of VNON charity events and with personal donations, Gabe has raised money for C.A.S.A. Court Appointed Special Advocates, International Rescue Committee, Children of War Foundation, Children International, Save the Children, Green Peace, and Love a Community.

In 2015 Rosales traveled to the Kumi District of rural Uganda with the creator of Love A Community and Play Well Africa for a dual mission to aid both the largest dilapidated hospital in the district, and to document and facilitate Lego workshops for the local children at the primary school. Love a Community created the clean water-system from fundraising for Atutur hospital and through the 2015 mission they donated solar panels for the hospital’s consistent electrical power.

As a University of California, Irvine student, Gabe was a Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation Ambassador organizing multiple events annually, centering around refugee issues, food insecurity and homelessness.

US Government Programs

Gabe has worked with the US State Department and the world renowned LA based youth advocacy non profit organization Create Now, building with Hip Hop artists from the Middle East and North Africa to stop impoverished youth from joining terrorist organizations. With this organization and the US State department he has facilitated the creation of Hip Hop Collective chapters in Egypt and Tunisia. Building on solutions with the board of Directors at Create Now and the management at the gang-member-reform collective, Homeboy Industries, Gabe helped to solidify lifelong connections and tools in providing at-risk juveniles a creative outlet.

Documentary

Rosales was asked to join activist musician George Lynch's band, Shadowtrain, in 2011 to record multiple albums and travel the United States documenting the plight of Native Americans, illuminating the US history of genocide, and the uncovering the poverty many natives face in Third World America. Through this band Gabe became affiliated with the American Indian Movement and the "Zero Tolerance" chapter in Whiteclay, outside the Pine Ridge reservation on the border of Nebraska and South Dakota. This award-winning documentary entitled Shadow Nation included original music from Shadowtrain, consisting of a double album released on Ratpak records. The Shadow Nation documentary received multiple film festival awards after it’s release. Purchase the double album by clicking here and purchase the Shadow Nation movie by clicking here.

Academia

Rosales began pursuing his formal educational goals in 2010. As his activism centered around at-risk youth, substance abuse treatment, and urban arts, his focus shifted from Anthropology to Criminology. In 2015 he earned an Associate in Arts degree in Liberal Studies and a General Studies Certification at Saddleback Community College and in 2017 he earned a Bachelor's degree from the nation's top undergraduate Criminology, Law and Society program at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

At Saddleback community college, Gabe was in the Honor’s Program and continued academic success on the Dean’s Honor role at UCI.

At UCI, Rosales was a recipient of the Fudge Family Scholarship for the School of Social Ecology, he co-founded the undergraduate chapter of the organization Students For Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), was the co-director of communications and media for the UCI Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation and joined the Secular Student Alliance. As an alumni, Gabe has also helped co-found a chapter of the formerly incarcerated student organization Underground Scholars Initiative at UCI, and has also been liaison for the undergraduate SSDP Chapter.

In 2016 Gabe became a close affiliate of one of the leading cannabinoid researchers in the world, Dr. Daniele Piomelli. Dr. Piomelli became the Director of the newly created UCI Center for the Study of Cannabis in 2018, which Gabe is now an active part.

In 2018, Gabe started law school at Western State College of Law but withdrew when his prison work became more of a focus and the law school started experiencing financial problems. Rosales applied to the doctoral program at UCI for Criminology in 2019 and was accepted in 2020. Rosales filed for nonprofit status for VNON in 2018 and in collaborating with UCI faculty, VNON was the recipient of a National Institute of Health grant to work on UCI’s PrisonPandemic.

In 2020, Gabe was the recipient of the Arnie Binder Graduate Student Service Award, Graduate Student Mentoring Award, and in 2022 he was the won the Tom Angell Fellowship mentoring award. In 2023, Gabe won the Underground Scholars Program Leadership award and the Kitty Calavita Best Second Year Paper Award. Rosales was one of the core founding members of UCI’s PrisonPandemic oral history repository and he is on the steering committee for UCI’s LIFTED program, the first University of California based BA program in a state prison.

From 2020 to the present, Rosales has presented his research on multiple continents for a diversity of academic audiences, most notably, the International Law and Society conference, the National Institute of Health, the American Society of Criminology, and the Western Society of Criminology.

Gabe’s research and focus is on generative justice, higher education in prison, arts in corrections, desistance, and integration policies in California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

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Criminal & Juvenile Justice

During the summer of 2016 Gabe became an affiliate Law Clerk working on the Clemency Project 2014 and petitioned for the release of non violent low-level drug offenders who were serving unjust, outdated and irrational sentences. In 2017 Rosales attended leadership training seminars at the University of Southern California (USC) facilitated by Just Leadership USA whose goal is to cut down 50% of the prison population in the United States by 2030. Rosales was later handpicked for a group of fierce and focused criminal justice advocates and activists to converge at the state capital for a 2-day conference called Next Generation Fellowship. He brainstormed with officials from the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the MILPA collective for working solutions to California's correctional institution populations. They later presented these solutions to the state's legislative bodies at the California State Capitol.

In early 2018 Gabe joined forces with the innovative nonprofit founded by United States rock icon Wayne Kramer called Jail Guitar Doors. He facilitates weekly classes in Richard Donovan State Prison on multiple yards to help rehabilitate the incarcerated population through positive songwriting expression. At Donovan State prison Rosales is involved with the mental health department, arts programs, education department, and is a steering committee member for UCI’s LIFTED in-prison Bachelor’s program.

In 2021 Rosales was asked to join the Michelson 20MM Smart Justice Think Tank to create policy guidelines for incarcerated students.

In 2023, Rosales became an Underground Scholars Policy Fellow, working with California legislators and advocates to support criminal justice related bills.

Starting in 2021, Rosales became a community sponsor for multiple initiatives created by the incarcerated populations at Richard J Donovan State Prison. He has supported SMART Recovery efforts, Buddhist meditation classes, mental health peer facilitators, the prison’s media publication “Here and Now,” and most notably, he is the co-sponsor of an elaborate remodeling operation of Echo Facility called Rehabilitation Through Beautification.

Recovery

In 2013 Gabe started an online community of secular sobriety advocates called Secular Sobriety Network. As the sole administrator he filled the page with addiction science related articles, alternatives to AA and 12 step-modeling, and positive recovery affirmations. As the page grew in members he added long-time friend, SSDP chapter leader, canna-business entrepreneur and certified addiction counselor, Jared Agins, as another administrator and by 2016 he began the process to earn a substance abuse counseling certification from both State agencies and an alternative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) program. He became a guest speaker at various Intensive Outpatient programs around Orange County, CA.

In 2017 Rosales crossed paths with interventionist/guest speaker/documentarian Todd "Z-Man" Zalkins and the Nowell Foundation where he appeared on Mr. Zalkins' sobriety podcast and in 2020 Gabe was a guest on sobriety advocate John Sheldon’s podcast My Secular Sobriety. In 2018 Gabe became SMART Recovery certified.

Educator

Gabe began instructing students on the bass guitar in 2000 and by 2003, he was also teaching guitar and ukulele. Gabe is well established in teaching all styles of music as an outlet to nurture youth at The Guitar Shoppe in the city of Laguna Beach, on an online cutting edge music instruction site, Dangerous Guitar, and with private lessons.

As an activist, professional musician, and Zulu Union member, Rosales has educated at-risk youth, and given lectures to captive audiences on Hip Hop culture, revolutionary music and criminal justice system history.

After Gabe graduated with a degree in Criminology, and spent years teaching a Rehabilitative Achievement Credit-bearing class (RAC credits) in state prison, he began guest lecturing for Criminology and Criminal Justice classes and conferences statewide. He has been a guest lecturer at Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Dominguez Hills, La Sierra University, University of California, Irvine, Old Dominion, Drake University, and a panelist for the 2019 Arts in Corrections conference presented by the California Lawyers for the Arts foundation.

Gabe has several publications through Inner Child Press on racism and the evolution of skin pigmentation from the latest anthropological studies.