melati_480-450_sans

Melati_480-450_sans

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Melati_collage

FINDING WHO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE
It&rsquo;s in these most dire situations the most otherworldly almost that you find out who you really are, and what person you wanna become. Are you the one that looks away or are you the one that gets involved and jumps in even though you know you’re risking your life.

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Melati has been fighting plastic pollution since she was 12 years old. With her sister Isabel, she launched Bye Bye Plastic Bags and together, they have mobilized thousands of children and tourists. They obtained the ban of the sale and distribution of plastic bags, packaging and straws on their island Bali. Melati believes in the power of her generation. She is nowadays developing Youthtopia, a youth empowering ecosystem where young changemakers create content around their skills learned at the frontlines of change.

Her action

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« How many marches are we going to do, how many lives are going to be lost, how many whales are going to be washed up with plastic in their stomachs until we actually see change happening ? And where does that come from and who leads it ? Cause, we have no more time. »

Her turning point

none

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« Throughout history we&rsquo;ve seen large gatherings of people really uniting. To a point where there is no other way of seeing things. That was the result of people feeling they belong again, that they&rsquo;re alive again because they have found a bigger purpose, bigger than themselves. And his is really something we are really hungry for because we&rsquo;re not taking the little solutions, the little fixes for an answer. And it&rsquo;s like an interesting crossroad that we&rsquo;re at right now, in human history, where you things are going to happen in our lifetime. And they can go a lot better, but we have to take it more seriously. We have to actually ask ourselves what are the commitments we are going to make. And how to unravel and change culture? Culture is our biggest tool and our biggest weapon. Because it interconnects to all our issues today. »

Her drive

Her fight

Youth 
empowerment

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« My project YOUTHTOPIA has been building for the last four years inside of my head, inside of my heart. The need of it has been emphasized and amplified so much by the different characters and young people that I’ve met, the different stories that I’ve heard, the different issues of the world and the different solutions that are available to us. And my next step is really creating this place for young people to come together and have peer to peer education. What we really need right now is this space to come together in an authentic way, led by young people, for young people on a universal scale. This place is an urgent need for our generation. And that’s a youthtopia. »

Nowadays

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« I met amazing people that were doing things beyond anything I would ever be able to do. And there were at a lot of heavier topics than I was exposed to everyday. So it was very hard for me to plug myself in and out, in a way where I feel like I could continue being who I am without feeling bad about it. But, it’s a story that needs to happen, it’s a story that needs to be heard and I think that the whole truth about it is that we’re understanding there is something a lot bigger than us and that&rsquo;s the kind of way we need to start moving through life again. This film is going to show what we can do and what we need to do and it&rsquo;s going to be coming from a from a completely unexpected point of view. The film will affect people on a lot of different ways than how perhaps we think it will. It is not an inspirational thing. The role of it is to really dig deeper in a lot of issues, and see the truth. Say what it is so people decide what they feel it is for them. »

The film

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YOUTHTOPIA wants to allow young activists to create and share content on what they have learned. Their programs are made with, by and for youth, around the Millennium Goals and what they believe to be the key qualities for engagement. The idea is to become the resource center for agents of change and a platform for learning and engagement. It is the entity created by Melat Wijsen, the red thread character of BIGGER THAN US during the shooting of the film.

Youthtopia

YOUTHTOPIA aims to be a youth empowering ecosystem where young changemakers create content around their skills learned at the frontlines of change. Our programs are made with, by and for youth from concept to delivery, guided by the 17 SDG’s and core changemakers’ skills. Our vision is to become the global HQ of young changemakers and the go-to platform to learn how to get started and become a changemaker. At this time, we are looking for funding, team with media background and IT background

Bigger Than Us

Melati Wijsen

Youth
empowerment

You can help

Youthtopia

Follow the training

Melati Wijsen

Youth empowerment

You can help

Youthtopia

Follow the training

Youth
empowerment