My journey begins on June 26, 2019, when I arrived in Palangkaraya for the first time and joined a team of four strong women – Ranu Welum. Although it seems like a small team in a small city, the work Ranu Welum does can go to a very big scale. From local youth training to international campaigns, it was truly a grassroots movement with global impact. I experienced it all in 8 months, here’s my story.
By the time I arrived in Palangkaraya, Haze from forest fires is in its early stages of covering the city. On some days we can see the bright blue sky and on some other days, it’s gloomy and grey as we were covered in Haze. I still remember the time I saw a full moon at night time during Haze, it looked very bright but it was yellow. I thought it was a very beautiful view until my team taught me the moon was yellow because it’s covered in Haze. The people of Central Kalimantan has been experiencing this for 22 years. I learned that I need to take part in doing something about it.
I learned that to make a change, we need to start from the ground. We worked on a campaign for Haze awareness and ran social media pages for “PAQ” (Palangkaraya Air Quality) where my job was the social media admin. We give updates daily for the PM 2.5 levels that we measure on our own, the 5W+1H of haze, and offer free N95 masks to our followers to pick up at our Haze Shelter HQ.
Amid forest fire and haze chaos, we managed to organize our annual Kalimantan International Indigenous Film Festival (KIIFF). I was given the position of graphic designer for all our festival advertising contents and during the event, I was in the documentation team and video editor for the highlight.
Kalimantan International Indigenous Film Festival 2019. Credit:@ranuwelum
GETTING BUSY FOR MOVEMENT
We went 191 km North to the Talekoi Village for our documentary film project. My role was the narrator and instead of only reading scripts, we were made to observe by our senses while we were there, wrote and shared our thoughts, and it evolved into an impactful narration. You can see me in the doc Dayak Facing The Giants. We filmed it in the village, and after we're done with filming, we held another screening of KIIFF films for the villagers and also showed them some of the footages we took with them. It was very memorable to see the reaction of the people being empowered by seeing themselves on the screen. We hope it inspires the children and teenagers and we hope the elders are proud of us doing what we do.
In Ranu Welum, other than filmmaking and global campaign for Indigenous Rights, we also work on our “Youth Act Kalimantan” Movement. Where we have indigenous youths volunteer in our programs to take part in organizing our tree planting movement called “The Heartland Project”, also involved hands-on in Kalimantan Haze Relief team as firefighters, forest fire awareness media campaigners, volunteer in our Public Haze Shelter to help people evacuate from the haze and provides them free medical treatment and masks, and created more Haze Shelters for the people. During this time, I was still mentored by the Ranu Welum team, but I also get to mentor the other youth volunteers which grew my leadership skill.
LEADING CLIMATE STRIKE
The highlight of my experience working for Ranu Welum is when I was trusted with the responsibility of leading the Kalimantan Climate Strike in 2019. Never in my life, I joined any sort of strike before, and as I just started learning about leadership, being a leader is very scary to me. With the help and courage given by the team, together we successfully organized the strike with 319 Kalimantan youths and had a hearing with the DPRD (Indonesian Legislative Parliament) and the No.1 person in Central Kalimantan, the governor himself. I became the leading spokesperson. Our objective was for the government to sign the pledge to stop forest fire and create haze shelters in every school. We succeeded in getting their signs, but the fight continues as the realization of the pledges are not happening.
The most important part of the Youth Act Kalimantan movement is that we don’t just organize it and get people to join just like that, but instead the volunteers of Youth Act became proactive and organize everything with us, and what satisfy me is when I see the volunteers ace in leading their movements and communities.
I found out all the capabilities that I never thought I could do through this experience. My main job was social media & website manager and article writer for our online platforms and I learned other fields during this experience. I got trained in filmmaking (videography, acting, and video editing). I was trusted with leadership positions which have made me a brave individual. Also going to villages and meet the respectful Dayak elders with their endless wisdom makes me proud of my roots. It has lit this fire of wanting to keep giving back to the community.
Written by Marsela Arnanda.
with Ranu Welum team.