Asia Solidarity Lab Fellowship 2022
The Asia Solidarity Lab Fellowship 2022 is a six-week program that ran from 04 June 2022 to 09 July 2022.
The Asia Solidarity Lab Fellowship is a program for Asian youth activists aimed at deepening the collective understanding and practice of intersectional organizing towards climate and social justice while strengthening solidarity, community care, and relational ties across movements in Asia.
The journey of ASLF 2022 was marked with communal learning, unlearning, and relearning. Lessons covered by the program include storytelling, intersectional organizing (by way of climate finance, gender justice, and human rights), multimedia, communications, and digital campaigning. Every Saturday, the ASLF 2022 community came together not only to talk about our respective climate justice campaigns, but also how to deepen our collective understanding and practice of intersectional organizing, seeing our struggles as interlinked, and building a kinder, gentler, regenerative movement built on solidarity amidst climate grief, political anxiety and a persistent culture of overwork and burnout.
This inaugural cohort of the Asia Solidarity Lab Fellowship, through self-determination, was named “Team Berontak.”
Nominated by various partners in the movement, the fellows of Team Berontak originate from all over Asia, namely: Bangladesh, The Philippines, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, and Malaysia. The group also boasts representation from frontline communities, indigenous groups, LGBTQIA+ communities, women groups, and people with disabilities. The diversity of the group gifted us with reflections and brave conversations about privilege, access, vulnerability, empowerment, collective care, rest, and the power of learning/unlearning together in spaces like this, outside of the more “formal” skill-ups on storytelling, digital campaigning, communications, multimedia, and sessions on gender justice, fossil fuel finance, and human rights as they intersect with climate justice.
Our Cohort
Anjar N
Anjar is a hardworking, passionate and result-driven climate activist. He is currently pursuing his role as the Indonesia Field Organiser at 350.org, which is responsible for organising youth-led climate movements in Indonesia. He also has a deep interest in climate change, education and human right issues. He is driven by a vision to contribute in solving the issues with his knowledge as a mathematics student for better change, better life, and better future.
Ara K
Ara was born in Aceh Tengah, and currently lives in Yogyakarta. She studied Communications for her undergraduate degree at Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), and continued her Film and Television Studies in an extension program at Indonesia Institute of The Arts Yogyakarta (ISI Yogyakarta). Recently, she joined the Montase Film Community as a film critic and writer. She also interested in literature and the arts. She has been involved in several art activities, both performance and visual art exhibitions. Her work is mostly about social and environmental issues. She also actively participates in the climate movement as part of the collective of Fossil Free Jogja.
Babi P S
Babi hails from the capital city of Kerala. She is a person who is passionate about working with children and young adults. She aspires to create ecowise communities with sustainability, local action and equity as pillars.
Bill B
Bill is a 21-year-old climate activist from Tabaco City, Albay, Philippines. He earned a Bachelor of Secondary Education with a Major in Science Education at Bicol University, earning the recognition 'Cum Laude.' From 2018 to 2020, he served as president of the Bicol University Science Alliance Club, a college-based organization, and his participation in climate movements and eventual emergence as a full-fledged climate activist were both influenced by the numerous invitations to environmental and climate change seminar-workshops. In addition to being a climate activist, he is a strong supporter of environmental conservation and protection, and he partakes in various local and national youth-led and youth-serving environmental organizations in the Philippines. In 2020, he was recognized as one of the five young Filipinos who made waves in climate and environmental justice.
Chan D
Chan is the National Finance officer of the Student Council Alliance of the Philippines, Youth Ambassador for Break Free from Plastic, and advocates for environmental justice. He is currently a 4th year medical technologist student currently residing in the Philippines.
Fariha A
Fariha is a 22-year-old climate activist based in Bangladesh. Her fight is to make this planet a better place by promoting more eco-friendly steps, and reduce the gap between the policy makers and activists.
Jia-Yi L
Jia-Yi is specialized in environmental politics and policy and graduated with a Master of Diplomacy. In the local NGOs, she obtained experience advocating climate change legislation from the ENGO’s viewpoint and amplifying the youth's ideas as the delegation of TWYCC. On the international level, she’s participated in UNFCCC COP23, COP25, and COP26 as a representative and a reporter of local NGOs. Furthermore, she coordinated with other Asian youths in several side events to exchange the Taiwanese experience with the globe.
Kornel S
Kornel is a traditional farmer's son affected by climate change, which makes him concerned about policy, education, and social activities. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Bengkulu with a major in Agricultural Industry Technology in 2020. Currently, he is developing a small village-based community, "Karo Juara", and becoming a digital strategist at Fossil Free Bengkulu to educate the public and increase their awareness of the impact of fossil fuels on the climate crisis.
Moc A
Moc is a volunteer youth organizer from the province of Bataan, Philippines. He is a Council Member of Young Bataenos for Environmental Advocacy Network, a province-wide network of young peoples advocating and campaigning for environmental protection and climate justice, and shaping a climate-friendly and fossil-free future.
Moegi N
Moegi was born in Tokyo, Japan. During her senior year of university, she was exposed to pure nature during a farm stay in Europe, and was driven by the need to protect the beautiful Earth and wonderful culture created by humans. She has been involved in environmental activities for the past four years since returning to Japan as a volunteer of 350 Japan and a member of Spiral Club.
Riku K
Riku is a sustainable food system enthusiast with circular and generative thinking, robustly aligned with vegan, animal rights, LGBTQ+, HIV +, and immigrant communities.
Theva K
Theva is a growing environmentalist, whereby his work is inspired by social and environmental issues. He has fought for the rights of the indigenous people facing threats of eviction and displacement from their ancestral lands in Malaysia. He has also worked alongside govermental and non-govermental policy makers on designing climate policies which aim to delineate climatic impacts. One of his biggest projects was the Capacity Development Workshop on Legal Empowerment to Advance Children’s Climate and Environmental Justice (Malaysia) in partnership with Unicef. His active participation can be seen in the die-in protest across the globe to highlight and to demand attention towards the risk of human race facing extinction due to environmental destruction. Overall, he aims to educate on climate change by promoting climate action, and to achieve a sustainable way of living to provide a healthy future for the next generation.
Thierry L
Thierry is a registered social worker in Hong Kong. He has more than ten years of working experience in non-profit organizations, focusing on children and youth, and mental health. Later, he joined CarbonCare InnoLab, which empowered local young people speak up for climate change. He organized and coordinated the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) as a field trip programme, plus Climate Advocacy Training for Youth 2020 - 2022, LCOY 2021-2022, and will be organizing COP27 field trip.