Skoll World Forum Interviews: Spotlight on Climate and Indigenous Leaders

Introduction (00:02):
Welcome to Role Models For Change, a series of conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators working on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Joan Carling (00:12):
I’m Joan Carling. I am an Indigenous activist from the Philippines. I work to defend the rights of Indigenous peoples, to end human rights violations and criminalization, and advance social justice and nondiscrimination.

Matthew Beighley (00:32):
What are you up against? What’s happening in the Philippines?

Joan Carling (00:35):
In the Philippines, while we are around 15% of the global population, we remain the poorest. Our territories, our lands and resources are being grabbed for mining, for tourism, for agri business, and we are not part of the decision. It’s marginalizing us. And also, the situation is the same, more or less, in many other parts of the world where Indigenous peoples are located.

(01:10):
It magnifies the situation of Indigenous peoples across the world, where our being different is not respected, and we are treated inferior, and laws are discriminating our culture and who we are. That’s the reality that we are facing.

(01:34):
I grew up in a region where mining has started in the country. The mined out areas now are suffering from heavy pollution of our rivers. The people in the area do not have livelihoods. They don’t have source of water. Before, while they’re considered an area with higher income, now it’s really a very big problem what to do. Because the mined out area was not also rehabilitated. You cannot grow anything. The mountains are now flattened, like deserts. That’s the situation.

(02:20):
And now, they want to build more. They want to build more mining around not only in my region, but in also other parts of the country. That reflects how we are being ignored, how our relationship with our land, the source of our identity, the source of our livelihoods, the values that we carry for our reciprocal relations is completely undermined.

Matthew Beighley (02:51):
Talk to me about the work that you do. How do you begin to address a problem as big as this?

Joan Carling (02:56):
I started first thing when I was 18. When I was exposed to the villages where the tribals are going to lose their fields and villages from dams. They were fighting back. They are sacrificing their life. That’s when I truly understand what land and resources are for our survival. That it means that we cannot live in this world without our land and resources. And that the leaders and the members of the communities are ready to sacrifice their life.

(03:45):
I was challenged. I feel like if these people are going to defend their land with their life, then I should be supporting that, I should be one with them. Because it’s the right thing to do. It’s honoring and respecting who we are as Indigenous. The moment we are taken out of our land, then we lose our identity. If we don’t fight, then we will be gone in this world. Not only that we will be gone, the values that we carry, the way we take care of nature will not also be there, so the more destruction will happen.

(04:27):
The type of development that is promoted is very discriminatory. It may make other people rich, but definitely it will make us even poorer. Those that are taking care of nature are the ones going to suffer even more, and a few will only benefit. We need to stop that kind of development approach, that kind of discrimination to other people.

Matthew Beighley (04:56):
How do you begin to stop that? Is this something where you’re trying to change policy in the government? Are you trying to educate people on what their rights are? What the day-to-day?

Joan Carling (05:04):
Yeah. Yeah. First, it’s important for people to know their rights so that they can assert it, they can defend it. In knowing their rights, it’s also important to develop their unity. By coming together, they’re stronger. So forming the organizations empowering communities is the first step. Then, because decisions are made that are affecting our lives, we need to engage to those that are making those decisions. Those policies, those laws, those projects that are affecting us in a negative way, so that’s why we need to engage into policy reform. We need to engage with politicians. We need to engage with our mayors to say, “Hey, what you’re doing is not for our advantage.” But you can also do this to support us.

(06:03):
You need to engage with different actors that are taking decisions that are affecting us. From local governments, policymakers. And then also, identifying the groups that can support us. NGOs, for example. National human rights organizations, we consider them as our allies because we have a common vision, we have a common objective to go against discrimination, to promote our rights, to promote development that is appropriate for our context. To ensure that we get also the basic services that others are having. Education, proper education, proper health. And that women are also empowered, and not just treated inferior.

(06:59):
We need to deal with these different actors. But also, at the same time, building our strength, our unity, and the actions that we do.

Matthew Beighley (07:12):
Do you want to talk about climate and Indigenous communities, and the unique situation?

Joan Carling (07:17):
Yeah, yeah. The big issue now that we face is that, in many of our villages, because we’re very much relying, our interaction with nature is 24/7. We can see, we can observe changes that’s happening to the behavior of our animals, plants. And then, the climate is also changing.

(07:48):
For example, we know when to plant, what to plant. We do this, for example, in the rainy season. We have a calendar that we follow. Suddenly, that calendar of a weather pattern has changed. It really affects us so we don’t know anymore when is the right time to plant, and how the growth the of our plants. For example, the behavior of animals are changing. And even that we’re experiencing rain suddenly, that are affecting our crops, but also causing landslides or drought. People cannot explain that. Why is these changes happening?

(08:37):
It’s actually climate change. Yet, they don’t understand, in many communities, the reason why this is happening. That these changes are happening. If you look at the world, then you understand that because of the industrialization, the emission of carbon, that’s the one. Communities are not aware of that, but they’re suffering from the impacts.

(09:06):
They’re saying, “You need to help us because we cannot have food security anymore. The plants that we’re sowing to feed us is not growing well. We’re having problems with water. Suddenly, flooding is happening and we’re losing our homes because we need to move somewhere.” That’s the reality we face. But then, when we asked for support, it’s not there. One, there’s the digital divide. We cannot use the internet to say, “Hey, we need help. We’re having drought here,” or flooding. There’s no road to deliver the services that we need. For example, food. It already aggravates and magnifies already the neglect that we’re having.

(10:01):
That’s the reality that we face in relation to climate change. We have the least carbon footprint, as we say, but yet we’re suffering the most from the impact. And yet, we’re not also getting the support that we need. And at the same time, the solutions that are being put, the climate change solutions that are proposed are, again, impacting us negatively. What are this, for example? They’re, for example, imposing they want to develop solar farms and windmills. Fine, but we should be part of the decision. But what’s happening now is they just say, “Okay, we need renewable energy and we need your land, so we’ll just take over.” As if we don’t exist.

(10:52):
That is, again, the problem. That’s another form of land grabbing. And at the same time, mining will happen because they need transition minerals to support the green transition. Where are those minerals? In our territory. What is the legend of mining? It’s not only causing environmental mess, but it’s also denying us our livelihoods. Not only in the present generation, but the future generation. Because where will the next generation get their food, if our lands are completely devastated by mining?

(11:34):
This is another dimension that’s, again, imposed on us in the name of climate solution. You can imagine that multi-layered or complexities that we face in relation to the climate change. That’s one side. The other side is we’re actually persisting. We continue to protect and nurture the environment. We continue to protect the forest. We continue to protect to protect the biodiversity because that’s where we live on. That supports not only nourish our body, but nourish our soul. But that’s not even appreciated. That’s the role, that’s the contribution that we’re making. That, hey, the resources that we need in this world to survive and combat climate change is actually the resources that we are protecting. Yet, that is being targeted again, for so-called climate solutions.

(12:50):
That’s where we are now. We’re saying that it’s time for the world to also listen to Indigenous peoples. We have been contributing, we have values, practices, and principles that are critical for addressing the climate crisis. We want to partner with governments, and other actors, to find the real solutions to the climate crisis. We can. We can lead the way if we truly want to sustain the planet that we all rely on.

Matthew Beighley (13:31):
What’s the world that you’re trying to create? What’s your vision?

Joan Carling (13:34):
I’ve been going around in different communities of Indigenous peoples, particularly not only in the Philippines, but around Asia. I’m struck by what people want. The common desire is very simple. That Indigenous peoples want to live in harmony and peace in their territory. That the children can go to school, that they get their education. That when they’re sick, there’s hospital that will take care of them. And that they can celebrate, do the rituals, do the festivals, and continue to gather in abundance, their crop. That we’re allowed to do that, that nobody is stopping us. To use our resources, and transfer the knowledge that we have to the next generation.

(14:34):
For me, that’s what we want to see. That we are respected for what we are, that we can do, we can continue our practices of living in harmony with nature. But at the same time, we also get the basic services that we deserve like anyone else. That there is no discrimination. For example, in education, or health, that we’re also considered like others, that we all need this. That we also need technology, but in a way that will not destroy us. Those are what we think.

(15:13):
Living in peace and harmony with nature and with each other is also important. And that there is respect for diversity. That we may be looking, we may have a different language, we may have a different culture, but we respected as we also respect others.

Introducer:
“They’re talking about solutions, but they’re missing us.”Welcome to Role Models for Change, a series of conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators working on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Hello, Juan Carlos. Thank you very much for joining us today at the Skoll World Forum. So yeah, really excited to speak to you today about the work that you’re doing. To begin with, can you just introduce yourself and explain a little bit about the work that you are doing?

Juan Carlos J.:
Thank you very much. My name is Juan Carlos Jintiach. I am Shuar indigenous from the rainforests of Ecuador. I work right now as Executive Secretary of the Global Alliance Indigenous Territory in three continents like Asia, Indonesia, the Congo Basin in Africa, and Latin America, and the Caribbean. It includes the Amazon. Basically the three basins.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And so can you tell me a bit about what exactly are you working towards? What are your objectives in terms of indigenous people?

Juan Carlos J.:
We are indigenous people. I mean, we get together because each organization in the regions like COICA, Amazon Basin, like REPALEAC, Congo Basin. I mean, we get together, we create this coalition, this Global Alliance. The reason is because we are getting consensus, five demands. Each organization has their own projects of life, plans of life we call them, from the ground. But for the international arena, we’re getting consensus and we have five objectives, five points that we are following together.
One is about the context of human rights, about the consultations, free period for concerns. The second one’s about territory, how we are connected with our demarcation, titulation clearer. I mean, the land rights or land back. The three one’s about these big promises, the pledge of money. I mean, there’s a million dollars around the world promised for indigenous people, but only a single 1% is going to the ground. There were studies that were reflecting that, and information. So that’s another concern that we are working, following, monitoring. And we have a project that we call Shandia. I can spare more details later.
But number four is about the life criminalization. About the indigenous people, the persecution, I mean, daily my leaders, elders, only to defend our land, they’ve been killing in the land, in the rainforests, in different ways. And number five is about something, knowledge or scientific traditional knowledge, that we have in our cultures. So how we manage forests, how we live in our ecosystems. But these five demands, we work in these continents in Asia, in Africa, Latin America, but in this line, tropical area, on this planet.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And so I suppose, can you tell me, so obviously you explained that you grew up in the rainforest as an indigenous person, so you had all of this natural relationship with the environment, with nature, with the animals and wildlife. Can you tell me why exactly did you begin to do this kind of work that you’re doing now, this working in the Global Alliance, and doing the advocacy work? Why did you begin to try and make this change? I guess you said before that a lot of the defenders, the nature defenders, were dying in your communities. Is that maybe why, or are there other reasons when you began?

Juan Carlos J.:
Well, I am very well-connected with my people, with my culture, with my leaders. So my father was also a leader. My grandfather was a leader in the community. We have great governance in the culture of the Shuar. And there was other groups that have good governance. I mean, we need to understand that because when you have good governance, you have your assemblies. So the mother or father brings you in the assemblies and they begin to talk about the problematic, what’s surrounding around you, projects or illegal logging or companies or foreign people coming. We discuss in the assembly.
But we need to choose leaders who is going to manage the discussion. We need to listen to the elders’ Wishing. The elders’ Wishing is a special guide that they give in medicine to connect the vision. So I grew up with this, looking at this, and I was listening to my father and my uncles and relatives and somehow I was learning and listening to the demands and the problematics. So when you grow up with this, always I was connected. Somehow you’re learning at school with your own tradition, learning from the elders, and the challenges. So that is why I get connected with the elders, with the leaders, and the community, how we’re making discussions in the assemblies.
Everybody makes the exposition, the comments and concerns and questions about always looking at the concept and try to combine the well-being to be in our territory. And then the main point that always I was listening is about our territory where we live, we need to protect the territory or we are going to disappear. I mean, we need to talk to the government. There was different kinds of issues why this, so I learned that. After that I went to school, I need to learn, I need to read Spanish, I have to begin to listen to English because I have some friends, most of the documents was in English. That was a challenge because I really want to understand and my father was telling me something that, if you want to travel or you want to understand, talk to another, you have to learn other languages. So maybe that’s something that was very beautiful that he gave me. It was pushing me. I learned that.
And then I always was connected with my organization. I have special sentiments about unity, family, also the governance, the institutions, indigenous institutions. I believe in that because I believe in auto-determination. I believe in the institutionality, and also government we respect, but also we have our own government. We were there for many, many centuries or years. They don’t invite us to divide or create governments. They divide us. I have cousins in Peru, relatives, and we were divided by border. Okay? And then after they came to our territory, because in our territory we have resources and they have studies and different kind of studies.
So this was something that I was connected all the time when I was a kid, a teenager, also getting adult with leaders, helping there. Maybe helping to write them, to understand, to translate it. Because some of the leaders, they don’t know how to read it. They don’t understand English. So I was preparing myself to have that knowledge, to be this, like a bridge, to connect with the other, from the outsiders, and also with the government. So I say I begin to study. I went to university to study natural resource, study more English all the time. I mean, I’m not speaking perfect English, but I am doing my best. Also, that I begin to get my connection with other relatives.
So that idea is important because it helps you to connect with your path, connect to who you are. This is important because… And then you can also make a message that unity, we need to get together and work as strong… For any challenge that you have with governments, companies, miners, unity is the power. That is always going to be my message. I grow up listening at that, looking at that. When you have an assembly and we are drinking tea, chat, talking with the elders, sometimes in the night… I grew up there. And then doing ceremonies also. So maybe this helps me a lot, talk to leaders, and processes. What are the challenges?
And so that is why I was appointed to be a leader in organizations. In COICA, I was leading COICA, and the Amazon Basin umbrella. So when I was in COICA and I begin to travel to Brazil to meet other cultures in nine countries. So when I went to Guyana [inaudible 00:09:34], they were speaking English, they were speaking French, they were speaking Dutch, but also as indigenous, they live in the rainforest. So when I was in COICA, that was the step to prepare. Now, where I am, at Global Alliance, more continents, not just the Amazon. Continents in this line, the tropical forests, I spend.
So I was working step-by-step learning and processing. And also that was helping me to be a good leader, to be a good person, I think. So be a good person helps you also to give the trust. It’s not easy because we as different cultures, different persons, it’s a challenge to have this unity. But if you are clear, if you trust people, they trust you, I think, so you can do great things.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Really, really interesting explanation of that background. And as you say, from I guess the indigenous traditions that you learned of that unity, and then taking it forward, as you say, working across these different continents in Latin America, in Africa, in the Congo Basin, in Asia. I suppose for you, and you said obviously it’s a Global Alliance, how important do you think that it is for indigenous peoples who are often very far away from each other to work together as you say, in this unity? How important is that to have the global sort of movement?

Juan Carlos J.:
It’s very important. When also as a COICA, when I was leading COICA, I was also nominated in Latin America, we call it Abya Yala. They appointed me because I create trust relations with other leaders. They say, “JuanCa…” Oh, they call me JuanCa. They say, “JuanCa, we trust you and we nominate to be a chair in the climate change arena.” So that was a real honor because they trust me and I have another challenge to this. So I was leading the International Indigenous Forum for Climate Change for many years as a co-chair.
So it was not just my culture, it was not just Amazon Basin, it was not just Global Alliance. I’m talking here about seven regions in the planet with differentiation, the cultures. Not just the tropics, there was the Arctic, oceans, different other ecosystems. But that was very important for me to learn this process in the global planet context and the United Nations differentiations of indigenous people. That was really, really amazing. Maybe that’s the reason that I have many brothers and sisters around the planet. I’m leading now as a Global Alliance in the tropics with the trust they’re giving the leaders. But I also have a good relation with the other ecosystems.
So I understood this, I learned this, but always with the principle of respect, of solidarity. Because I learned in this process, when you broke this respect or the solidarity, as a human it means it can be dangerous as this unity. Always I was meaning to bring peace, love, respect, and solidarity, because us together, we can present concerns as a challenge in the climate change negotiations, CBD negotiations. That brings me to a point here that everybody, scientific people, they’re talking about solutions for deforestation and everything, but they’re missing us. I mean, they’re not talking with people, solutions with people. So that was something that I was in shock for many years.
So we have solutions, natural solutions. Yeah, perfect, [inaudible 00:13:43], excellent, scientifics here, papers there, and we were not there because for me, or for many indigenous people, as the Shuar or Aja Shuar, we are one, we cannot separate. We are the forest, we are the rainforest. That is why I’m always going to put from the ground to the international arena why we are connected with Mother Earth and the rights that we have in the United Declaration of Indigenous Peoples. Many of the countries are signatories but they don’t want to apply.
So this is something that right now as a Global Alliance, an international platform, we are convening in the tropical, we are talking with other ecosystems on the planet, but always bringing solidarity, peace, that we can do in this. We are actors. I mean, how they’re looking at us, just stakeholders or right holders. How I am in this piece too, I think. So together we can make the change.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah, it’s a very beautiful sentiment there, Juan Carlos. I’d just be interested to know from your perspective when it comes to the more difficult situations, you mentioned the funding has been just 1% towards climate funding, often indigenous people’s voices have been left out of the conversation. What do you think that countries like England, like America, the West and the Global North, what can we learn from indigenous peoples who have, as you said before, been running and living sustainably for hundreds and thousands of years sometimes?

Juan Carlos J.:
It’s very important to understand, for many indigenous people, we were excluded in the process to learn what is the meaning of the money. For many indigenous groups until right now, the isolated groups, people living free… I always say the freedom, people who are living isolated, we need to talk also for them. We don’t need to forget. There are some groups, they’re in transition. But about the money, we need to be very careful because some groups that are looking as a taboo for many years, “Oh, don’t talk about money. Only the NGO, there are specialists. They may receive the papers.” So there are many cases about that.
So as I mentioned from the beginning, I’m very proud to mention that I work with supporting governance, auto-determination, and we need to learn everything. I am no expert managing finances or money, but I have my expertise in different ways. Maybe politicians or maybe to do lobbying, talk to people. But we need to learn. That is why in the context of money and the studies that they were telling us, I mean we are donating because we were coming from the ground to make our concerns and the governments or the donors, they were listening. So I mean something’s wrong here. Right?
That is why we create the Shandia proposal. But what is this platform? Why we create this? In COP26 in Glasgow, there was a reciprocity maybe because we were bringing our concerns about the financial. It was not coming, the money, to the ground. There are beautiful projects on the ground, a beautiful context about forest, water, energy, you can imagine everything. That is the beautiful that we can support. But maybe the challenge for us, of course, we need resources. That is something that we bring this concern, and the International [inaudible 00:18:02] on Climate Change in solidarity say, “Okay, we are leaving 1.7 billion for indigenous people, local community.” Okay? It is going to finish in 2026. It’s going to finish then.
So we are monitoring. We know, we are looking, where is this money going? Sometimes this money just get in one level, the second level is not going to the ground. We’re doing efforts. But it’s very important to understand here that indigenous people, like Global Alliance, we are pushing, we are presenting our own mechanism of indigenous people in Mesoamerica, in Amazonia, in Congo Basin, Nusantara in Asia under the Solidarity Fund. And Polali. I mean, there are exercises. The world not just need to give the money, has to give the chance to work, that collaboration, and our indigenous mechanisms left. Right? So that is how is the momentum to do this transform.
I very appreciate. I mean, I need to recognize that in some partners, good partners in a good faith, they were managing our resources, because we don’t know how to lend because we are afraid to manage money for many reasons. Sometimes it’s difficult to because the countries block you. Why indigenous people are getting money? Why the Global Alliance is getting money? For what? I don’t permit as a government, but it’s going to be done… Many, many things you are going to think about, and this is the challenge that we are having right now.
But we need resources. Imagine, beautiful things are there, projects. With some with the resources that we are doing, more collaboration is needed, and then we can do more amazing things. So in the context of financial, I think is a momentum to transform. I ask this to my partners, give me the chance to transform with my own mechanism, and then we talk governance, auto-determination, solidarity, in a good way.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah, it’s very interesting as you say, at least now that things are beginning to change and there has been some financing at least for the next few years. But I did want to ask you about, because we said before how generally indigenous voices have been ignored in the conversation. And I suppose from your perspective, what lessons can indigenous people give to us? What can you tell us about, well we think about the climate crisis for example, and how it is the West that has created the majority of these emissions, whereas indigenous peoples, you have systems of living quite sustainably. Is that maybe one of the lessons that we can learn from indigenous people?

Juan Carlos J.:
I always like to talk to the leaders for the regions. Recently, we do annual convening because in one year many things happen in continents. So my leader from Amman, Indonesia, Ruka, came to the meeting. She’s the co-chair. My leader from PB, all the indigenous Brazil people, they’re coming for a one-year experience challenge coming. And my leaders from Mesoamerica, Mexico, Panama, came. MPV. And the Amazonia and also REPALEAC. Imagine one year, maybe it goes too fast, but the information they’re bringing and we convening as a council with background, millions of people, millions of programs, to talk about or road or path. That is what I am leading and challenged, they help me. I’m very honoring. So it’s a huge responsibility. I really love to do this, to help, always to help and collaborate.
So that is why we say, “Where is going to be the next convening a meeting, special, we identify… COP16 CBD is going to happen in Cali, Colombia. We need to open this agenda, how local communities, in this, we are connected in Latin America. COP29 is happening at Sabayan with this fossil oil country. COP30, we go back to Amazon. Belém, Brazil. It’s important right now, for right now that convening, we make a message. We need to ask people from the other side, solidarity, and connect in this road.
We have urgency on the ground is a tipping point that for the Amazon or for the disasters that we are looking at, monitoring. We have seen these changes daily. But sometimes they say, “Give me the data. Give me the statistics.” We can do that. Yes, of course. But for the sentiment, we don’t need just to polarize statistics, numbers, money. It’s about life. It’s about new ways of life, of paradise, as indigenous people, how we are living. We just want to present that harmony, solidarity with Mother Earth. They’re talking to us… How we talk to forests? We have our own tradition how to talk to rainforests and have the message from Mother Earth that is suffering daily.
So together we can go and make this change in the next meetings like climate change, CBD. At COP30, we are going as a JTC, as an indigenous people from the planet. We are going to make the paradigm change about how it’s going on, disasters, the climate crisis.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And I just suppose I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the progress that has been achieved so far. Again, we said before about how normally the funding and support for indigenous peoples has been very low. But do you believe that there has been some good progress that has been made? And I also wonder when it comes to, is there greater awareness even among indigenous peoples? When you said that you went to different countries, you went to Brazil and many others to meet other leaders, do you think that this has been also a positive experience that you can take into the future where there is this solidarity between different indigenous communities?

Juan Carlos J.:
It is. It is. They’re giving the opportunity because my elders… Imagine last year. Last year… I want to remind this, the memories of the indigenous leaders, that they’re not with us right now, with us here. They’re in the eternity with the father. Because a hundred years was last year, a hundred years when the first indigenous leader was begin to walk in the international arena. Why? Because he was looking in his own home how they were suffering with some governments or some different context. So begin to walk, begin to bring these concerns. A hundred years. And then we came more other groups, more other leaders. And then we have rights, we have this…
We have amazing winners, proposals and contents that we did. But we need to keep working, making our voices clear, effective. We lobby. And in some countries they’re trying to open to us, they’re receiving us. I talk to them in my experience, say, we respect. “I know you don’t know me, I don’t know you, but we respect. Listen to us.” Or, “I want to listen to you.” I think other groups, other indigenous leaders, good leaders that are doing this kind of lobbying the international arena. But this has been very effective in the recent years time I think. So we need to keep moving and working on that.
But it’s not enough. It’s not enough because always we depend on who is going to be the leader of the developed country or undeveloped country. Sometimes they think right and left. We can know, as indigenous people, go right and left. I mean, we are integral, are multicultural, multi-plural. So maybe we need our own line of party as solidarity. So this is the challenges. But they’re giving the opportunity, and always myself and some leaders, or my friends in my own country, I open asking, “Give me the chance to sit down at the table and to understand what are your policies for my people. That your policies that you are leading, you want to implement in this country, the people they need to know. We have the right.”
And I’ll remind them. I say, “We have demands. We speak, we bring our concerns,” but also I need to remind them, to some governments, that we, in writing, we have collective rights in the constitution. So that is something that we need to remind and they’re listening. Sometimes that is effective that we need to be prepared so the generation who are coming behind me, they’ve got more training and the technology we need to use in a good way for you kids. But we need to give directions. We need to remind them who they are, where we are coming from, connected with our culture. That makes you strong. You are from China, I’m going to be there, but I never ever want to forget who I belong, who I am. I’m from the rainforest and from the Shuar people.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And just one last question for you then, Juan Carlos. I just would be interested to know, can you tell me what exactly… Well, when the world that you are working towards, the planet that you are trying to help create, the one that your sons and your grandsons will live in, can you tell me, describe a bit about what that world is like, this ideal that you are hoping for?

Juan Carlos J.:
For many cultures that have been living in the Amazon, for many reasons, they were disappearing daily by daily for many reasons. If the organization or the group is not strong in different lines with identity, culture, it’s difficult to fight the pressure. But if you are united, you decide in community what in a good way you will survive the pressure, as integrity. Unity makes you strong. Unity makes you wise. Unity makes you collective, community, solidarity, yourself. The eagle, the one person, is very dangerous. I mean, very dangerous things. That’s one example. Money or leadership is just one person. No, we are collective.
So for the youth, my kids and many kids, that is why it’s a momentum that we present as our own how we want to live. We respect with the Mother. We respect with our plans of life. I’m going to summarize there. Plans of life, or art, for me or for us or for other group is the manual that the elders will discuss in their own discussion ceremonies. The elders, right? My plans are there, my food is there, my chakra. All my Aja is here. So connecting life, food, in symbiosis with the natural, because I was mentioning to you, we cure, we have everything. If we damage, it’s not going to be a good help for you people or for the ecosystem. That is why we always care about the Earth. Always. The rivers contaminating, the deforestation, illegal logging, etc. So this is like a cancer that we need to fight together.
But that’s not the problem. Maybe we know how to do that, identify in the ground the message, solidarity, to be here in Skoll to meet amazing nice people, to let them know how my concerns can bring in the international global perspective. To who do we need to talk? To who is the owners of these big companies? Who is making this money happen on the ground? So I think for us, harmony, autonomy. As you go to some groups in my territory, in the Amazon, I say, “I want to live in this territory with my resources, with water clean, with air.” You’re welcome. Yeah?
Of course, it’s nice to be here now to see, but I am not adapted for this climate. So this is something beautiful that we as a human we can share, but I think in a good way it is time to do that. And we are doing.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Thank you so much for your time then, Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos J.:
Thank you.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Role Models for Change, a series of conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators working on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Hello, Kynan. Thank you very much for joining us today at the Skoll World Forum. So, to begin with, can you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?

Kynan Tegar:
So my name is Kynan Tegar. I am from the Iban people of Borneo, and I’m a filmmaker. I mostly do work filming in around my community, documenting our stories and telling it through a documentary format.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And so I suppose, can you tell me what the inspiration was for you to do this kind of work? Why do you think it’s important for you to do?

Kynan Tegar:
For me, stories have always been a part of my life growing up, hearing the stories from my elders, stories that has been passed on for generations to generations, but we’ve always been doing these stories orally, right, passing it through word of mouth from mother to daughter, etc. And the act of translating these kinds of stories into materials that were actionable into something that can create change was something that was very lacking in my community.
Oftentimes it was media, journalists, anthropologists are the ones who are telling our stories, and that’s what inspired me to think, why don’t we tell our own story, right, through our own eyes, through our own perspectives, through our own unique worldview and ways of knowing? And that’s why I started making films. I picked up my first camera when I was around 12 or 13, and since then, I’ve just been creating films and doing advocacy work, advocating for the rights of our people through these stories.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Well, that’s a really young age than 12 or 13. So how did you… Can you tell me a bit how that happened? Was it from school, or your parents had a camera at the time?

Kynan Tegar:
It’s quite a long story, but I’ve always been exposed to a lot of camera work growing up, ironically enough, in my village because, like I said before, people have been coming in and out of my community to take pictures to make films, and I usually just tagged along with them, seeing how they did their work. And when my father’s organization, they had the chance to get a camera for the organization, and my dad entrusted it to me, that was when I was 12. And then, one day, he just said to me, “Hey, Kynan, we’re having this big ritual in the village. Why don’t you take some videos?
We can… Maybe we can show it to the community, right.” And it started off like that, but then I started trying to make it into an actual film. I learned editing from scratch. I learned most of it by myself through watching YouTube tutorials and things like that. And finally, when I was 13, I made my first film, and it was able to premiere at a film festival in Bali. And I saw that when it was first being shown in front of hundreds of people, I saw that film has this unique ability to move people, right.
It has this certain uniqueness to it that I found really powerful. And since then, I’ve been trying to create films for change. One of the films that I made was about the decades-long struggle of my community, Sungai Utik, trying to… struggling to fight for their rights. That was a decades-long struggle starting in the 1970s when logging companies first came to our village, and our elders, they had to drive them away time and time again over and over for decades until they received their rights back in 2020. And that’s what my film documented.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And those are the land rights-

Kynan Tegar:
Mm-hmm.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
… you’re saying? Yeah. Okay. And I suppose, can you tell me, so obviously you said, at the beginning, you’re having journalists and anthropologists coming to your territory and doing the filming. And I suppose that what you would like to do is sort of tell the story yourself. I mean, were there, I suppose, errors, or do you think that your community was portrayed incorrectly in the past from those outsiders that would come?

Kynan Tegar:
That’s a very interesting question. The people who came, the media, the journalists, the anthropologists, I think everyone has their own way of seeing the world, right. Everyone has their own culture that they belong to, and these shape the way that they view things, their ontology. And that has a lot to do with how they would portray other people through their own lens.
And sometimes it’s not necessarily bad, but oftentimes, there are so many things that are lost in translation, lost in interpretation. There’s always a general narrative, a relatively positive one anyways, that portrays Indigenous peoples as these peoples who are in touch with nature, people who are practicing their traditions, et cetera. And there’s a lot of truth in that, of course.
But we are just much more than that. And that’s something that’s so rarely touched on by these people. And that’s what I want to share, the richness of our way of seeing the world, the richness of our culture. And I think through storytelling, I want to just be able to paint a really vibrant canvas of all of the different possibilities, the different ways of thinking, the different ways that we view things.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And I suppose obviously your normal medium of showing that is through video, as you say. But I wonder, can you tell us a little bit about what your life was like growing up there? What are those traditions of your community? And just give us a bit of color and help paint the picture, if that’s okay.

Kynan Tegar:
Sure. So my community, Sungai Utik, it’s an Indigenous community home to the Iban people. There’s around 200 or 300 of us, and we live in this one big structure called the Longhouse. It’s a 200-meter-long structure that everyone lives in and grows up in and play in, and it’s where our community is. Right next to the Longhouse is our river, the namesake of our community. Sungai Utik. Sungai in… translates to river, and Utik means clear.
So it’s the river that runs clear. And that is something that has held true to this day. If you go to the river today and dip your feet in it, even if you’re neck deep in it, you’ll still be able to see your feet. You are still able to drink directly from the water. And this is only possible because our forest is still intact. There’s no gold mine concessions upstream. And that’s only possible because of the decades-long struggle that our elders had in defending this.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And yeah, as you said before, some of these traditions and beliefs are usually maintained through oral practices, oral history. And so I suppose is part of the motivation for your work by documenting it in video is so that there really is that preservation for a hundred years down the line, maybe 200 years, this will still be always accessible to humanity.

Kynan Tegar:
Yes. I think the act of documenting all of these traditional knowledge, one part of it, is definitely for preservation, but the second part of it is to be able to learn from it, to have this preserve as something that you can use as a reference point. And there’s so much that you can learn from it, that is for sure.
But I think the one reason why I personally think that documenting these unique worldviews, these unique cultures, is to open up our collective imagination to all of the possible ways of seeing the world. And through that, we can learn that there’s an alternative, that we’re not just stuck in this one system in our current world. There’s many, many different ways to live, and we can learn so much from that.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah. So a beautiful sentiment. And I wonder, obviously, with the at least historic kind of setup of the Global North and the West always having this idea of being more developed and having the best kind of infrastructure and healthcare and all of these systems. I just wonder, do you actually believe that, and it seems like you are saying this anyway, but in fact the Global North and the West can learn from this Indigenous knowledge from your community and others around the world?

Kynan Tegar:
Yes, most definitely. The Global North has much to learn from Indigenous communities, local communities, throughout the world because the current system the Global North has, it’s a system that has created so much inequality in the name of progress. It’s usually people would say that economic growth has created prosperity never before matched. But the question is prosperity for who? We can see that there’s so much inequality happening that these resources that these Global North receive from Global South countries, none of the people back home receive anything back from that. It is a system of extraction, of moving wealth from one area to another, not in creating prosperity.
That’s why we have so much to learn from Indigenous peoples, local communities, but also from past societies. There’s always a very linear way of seeing development, it seems. People usually say that it’s from hunter-gatherer societies, right, to agricultural and then to modern. And we see that as 1, 2, 3 stage of development. And that has a lot of implications, of course. Implications such as Global North or, quote, unquote, modern communities, viewing Indigenous peoples as these peoples who are left behind who are in need of development when, in fact, that’s not the case. Development is not linear.
We are all unique. Every single society in the world is unique. They have their own values. They have their own cultures, of course, and that reflects a lot of the things that are in their natural environment. That’s why Indigenous peoples are often set to be the most well-adapted to their ecology. And as such, they’re the ones that are the best stewards to the forest, the best stewards to nature. And there is just so much to learn because if we are just stuck on this very linear way of seeing the world, then we’re blinded to all of the different possibilities that we can evolve into.
I think today we can collectively agree that capitalism has created a lot of very negative side effects, right, and we’re trying to find a system that’s better than that. I think that’s the role that Indigenous peoples, local communities can have in showing the different forms of social organization that’s possible. And how we can organize our society in a more equal way, in a way that ensures everyone has the rights to a good life. Everyone has rights to their land, to their livelihood, etc.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Right. And I suppose, as you mentioned there in the examples, of it seems at least there’s perhaps some growing recognition, particularly on those topics of, as you say, biodiversity and climate, of the role that Indigenous communities can play and what we can learn from them.
And I just wonder, well, for example, I went to do some reporting with the Kajang people in Sulawesi, in Indonesia, and they have been… some [inaudible 00:13:38] been receiving sort of land rights and some support because of the role in protecting the forest. I just wondered, to what extent do you think that the mindsets are now beginning to change and there’s a growing recognition of this?

Kynan Tegar:
There’s definitely been progress. I think that’s safe to say, especially back home in Indonesia in 2012, there was a revolutionary constitutional court ruling that said that Indigenous lands are… is not state forests. And that has a lot of implications. But along with it, still a lot of asterisks mark. You have to be recognized. You have to have your land recognized as Indigenous lands to be able to gain that right, that autonomy. And that’s a process that takes a lot of navigating around bureaucracies, navigating around the systems that has been put in place. And the unfortunate thing is that many Indigenous communities, the people who needs this the most, do not have access to that kind of expertise, right.
That’s what organizations like AMAN, the organization that I’m a part of, is doing, trying to liberate the access to these possibilities. And also, in recent years, there’s been a lot of work in saying that Indigenous peoples are the most efficient stewards of the forest in a way that we protect it basically for free, right. And that the forest it has in the forest, the trees in it, these are carbon sinks. They hold a lot of value in that. And that, in turn, has led to an incentive for governments, for businesses to protect these lands. But I think the major problem that lies in that is that we’re still using the predominant ontology of seeing that the… of seeing materialistic the things that they view, these ontologies view as materialistic the trees, carbons, trying to quantify that.
We’re still working in that framework. And I think if we truly want to move away from the very extractive mindset from and to actually create change in the system, to put a stop to climate change, we need to start thinking away from these ontologies. Just seeing things as a value, seeing it in monetary value, and the shift away from that can be led to… can be can be led by the way that Indigenous peoples perceive it. For example, in my community, we perceive the land as our mother, right, the forest as our father, and the river as our lifeblood. And we treat it as such. We respect it as such. And that way of seeing it might be the key in trying… in putting a stop to climate change.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And yeah, as you say, it’s very complicated systems changed ahead. But I just wondered to what extent you think because you did mention as well, I think the term you use is sort of widening the collective imagination. And to what extent do you believe in sort of a wider, I think, the term is sort a global movement of Indigenous peoples and that sort of exchange of beliefs and knowledge between various communities? To what extent do you think that that’s an important aspect to work on?

Kynan Tegar:
The global movement of Indigenous peoples throughout the world, from the basins of Indonesia, Africa, the South America, and all of the world, it’s a movement that’s based on solidarity at its very essence for me. Solidarity, in the face of the oppression we have had, the oppression of mostly the Global North, the colonizing forces, the forces that has taken away our rights, that has taken away our forests, our rivers, our seas, our land. And the solidarity has created a connection for us, for better or worse.
And this solidarity is something that’s based on a need, a need to have our rights recognized, a need to have a community, a global community. And this global community is something that is so very important for me. Having a community is truly important. We can have a sense of family. We can have a sense of brotherhood, and it’s one way that we can drive change through a collective. If it’s only one of us that are voicing for our rights, then we’re probably not going to be heard. But if it’s an entire global community of millions and millions of Indigenous peoples, then we might just have a chance.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And just to shift from the global back to the local in your community, I just wonder, what has the reaction been from the community? Well, I guess it’s your family and your neighbors been to your approach to filmmaking, obviously, as you say, just taking the agency into your hands and doing it and telling your story that way. How have they responded, and what do they think about it?

Kynan Tegar:
That’s interesting. Yeah, like I said before, I started making films just so we can have these videos being shown at the village, right. Because in the village we don’t have theaters, we don’t have the Box Office. And so we wanted to have this video that we can just share along with everyone so we can just see it, we can have a laugh, we can point out, “Hey, look, it’s you,” and things like that. But of course, that developed into something that’s much more bigger and something that has been able to create change, I feel.
After my films and also after a lot of collective effort from the community and everyone within it, in 2020, we were able to gain back our land rights, to receive the rights to our customary forest. This was the very thing that we fought for decades for. We, as in my family, my grandfather, grandmother, it’s a multi-generational thing. And in 2020, we were finally able to get that which was a really truly triumphant here for our community. And I think moving forward, I want to be able to explore more in-depth about my community and our unique culture.
Like I said before, there’s so much that we can learn, but there’s also still so much that I have to learn from my community. Being able to come into these kinds of spaces, like the Skoll World Forum, to COPs, to climate conferences. I want to be able to truly be able to represent my community to the fullest. And to do that, I need to understand the culture to know more about it. And that’s what I want to try and do over the next few years to truly peel back into all of the layers of this complex culture that is my own.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Brilliant. And then just one last question for you then now is just to do with, I guess, we spoke about the issues. Yeah, I supposed, well, not only in Indonesia but around the world, but when we’re talking about things like particularly deforestation and logging, gold mining, and there’s obviously huge negative impacts on… all over the country in terms of the environment and socially as well. But for you, I’d be interested. Could you describe what exactly the world that you are working towards looks like?

Kynan Tegar:
For us, perhaps, for our community, our people, the kind of world that we envision is a world that is just, that’s free from all of the previous power relations that has taken part in the oppression of our people and many more peoples throughout the world. A world that’s fair, one where all of our rights are ensured, where we’re able to live our life the way that we see fit, a world in which we don’t have to be dictated one way or another, that this is what you should want, that this is the right thing that you need.
Modernity, for example, that was one of the most harming stereotypes or perhaps propaganda that was done during the previous rules in Indonesia. So much changed happened because of that. So much suffering happened. A lot of injustices happened in the name of that quote, unquote, modernity. And I think a shift from development growth as something that’s inherently positive is something that can contribute to this better and more just world.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Okay. Well, thank you very much for your time.

Kynan Tegar:
Thank you so much.

Announcer:
Welcome to Role Models for Change, a series of conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators working on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Hello then, Sellah. Thanks for joining us today for the Skoll World Forum.

Sellah Bogonko:
Thanks for having me.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to speaking to you today about some of the youth-driven solutions that you’ve been working on. I suppose to begin with, can you just introduce yourself and give us a little bit of an idea about the kind of work that you’re doing?

Sellah Bogonko:
My name is Sellah Bogonko. I’m co-founder and CEO Jacobs Ladder, Africa. I started off my career in the private sector, worked there for about nine years, and then had the privilege of serving in government for five years in a rural county in Kenya. And that was my first-hand experience at what deliberate leadership and also just the impact of transforming people’s lives, especially at large scale with local solutions can do for one, for 1000, for 100, a couple of young people and women in particular because it was a rural county. And about two and a half years ago, I figured that we are not probably addressing the issue of youth unemployment as fast as we need to do. And with the emerging push globally on the issue of sustainability, I saw a convergence around if Africa can rightly position herself to take advantage of the current drive towards sustainability, this could be our saving grace when it comes to addressing the issue of youth unemployment.
And so I dedicated my, I guess my time and my effort, and shifted from a well-paying job, a stable job to co-found this organization, which is called Jacob’s Ladder Africa. And our mission is to catalyze 30 million jobs in the green economy in Africa by 2033. So it’s really at the intersection of leveraging the climate crisis on the one hand, but turning it into an opportunity so we can get as many of these young people to get the skills, the knowledge they need for them to be able to take advantage of these emerging opportunities in the green economy.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah, perfect. And I suppose obviously there is this great opportunity, this green energy transition, and I suppose, can you take me through how those developments have progressed so far and I suppose how you’ve managed to sort of build up some momentum?

Sellah Bogonko:
So we first started out by doing a baseline survey because we didn’t just want to go in and address the issue of climate holistically. We wanted to know what exactly are young people doing, what are they thinking about climate? So we did our perceptions having a couple of countries in Africa focused on young people. And we wanted to find out what do you think about climate? Do you see it as an opportunity or a threat? Are you seeing yourself investing either your career or improving on your skills to be able to play a role in addressing the challenges that are evident for all of us to see when it comes to the issue of climate change, which is obviously affecting Africa a lot more and disproportionately compared to other parts of the world in spite of contributing less than 4% to the global carbon emissions.
And so the insights were amazing, but two of the most telling insights for us was that there was a huge lack of… the gap around climate literacy was evident. And so we realized if we’re going to do anything, we have to start with the skilling, the education, the climate literacy component of it. And then the next one was the obvious intersection, whether it was the bottom of the pyramid or those young people who are a lot more exposed. A lot of them were saying that they would love to see the intersection of economic gain with climate change.
So for example, the young people from north Kenya, northern Kenya, were saying that for them they understand climate change to be an issue of livelihoods. Livelihoods meaning that they were missing out or they were being affected in the sense of losing out on their livelihoods when it comes to climate. That was their understanding. For those in the informal settlement who are saying when floods happen, a lot of their livelihoods as well are affected. Of course there’s the health issues and all that, but it still boils down back to livelihoods. And so we realized we had to address the issue of livelihoods.
So we started out and set up Jacob’s Ladder in three main ways. We focus on an early-stage startup incubator because we realized that we have to trigger the innovations, encourage a lot more young people to come up with solutions at local level. And then we also thought we do need to do a lot of advocacy and the education components. So we do run an advocacy program. We call it the Africa Climate Ambassadors Program, which is a mid-career professionals sort of program that focuses on telling the African story, looking at it from the opportunity narrative as opposed to the doom and gloom which is still there. And obviously justice is required, climate justice is required, but we still also have to balance it with advocating on the opportunity.
Then the last thing that we do is we now work with local governments to design programs that are then able to help young people to be able to participate at local levels in partnership with government. These programs are designed to make sure that they’re enrolled in socioeconomic programs that are green or focused on addressing climate change. For example, in climate [inaudible 00:15:18] agriculture, a regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, all of them geared towards making sure that their solutions being deployed within the communities largely, especially in the rural areas because that’s the larger portion of the African continent.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And I suppose… Thank you for telling me about those various aspects, but just to also help the listeners and viewers to understand really, can you tell me a bit about what some of, you’ve given the example in northern Kenya of some of those communities that are on the front lines of climate change, I suppose could you describe a little bit about what their lived realities are? What are the experiences on those front lines and day to day, how drastically their lives are being impacted?

Sellah Bogonko:
Absolutely. So take a journey with me to understand the African continent. You’re looking at about 54, 55 countries that are diverse in their own way, and fragmented, but at the same time, similar in terms of rural communities are similar across Africa. I recently found out in my, especially when I was starting this work, that about 72% of young people or the population in Africa actually still lives in rural areas, 72% being young people, meaning that you’re looking at a huge potential of young people who have the energy, have the curiosity, but are constantly on the back foot because on the one hand they’re not interested in agriculture or the mainstay around the communities. And then on the other hand, they have to do something within their communities. So you have to find that blend of how to get them engaged.
So in rural Kenya for example, let me talk about the northern, which is the example you’ve given, they’re largely pastoralists and there’s been a lot of interventions of trying to get them to climate-smart agriculture, and that requires a lot of retraining of their skills because they’re reliant on livestock and of course livestock in Kenya… in fact, sometimes when you drive through Nairobi you will come across cattle with their shepherds who are trying to find a pasture wherever it is. And sometimes that’s a cause of traffic, believe it or not.
But the lived reality is that whenever there’s a flood, it almost has direct impact, for example, on the children who have to stop going to school and then be able to find another place because they have to migrate. Like I said, in terms of them relying on pasture or livestock means that they have to keep looking whether there’s a drought or floods, it has the same impact on them. They have to keep finding ways of sustaining themselves. And that means that the migration impact is significant when it comes to climate effects on those kinds of communities. And that’s just in the especially semi-arid and arid areas. But again, for communities that are largely dependent on agriculture, the reality of climate change, especially where they’re not able to take advantage of ways of adopting, adaptive agriculture, where they’re able to make sure that regardless of the climate change, they’re able to still continue feeding themselves and then, of course, producing food to be able to sell and sustain the livelihoods.
So from an agricultural perspective, from their livelihoods perspective, from school, something as basic as education, the stories are real and these are the realities they have to live with when it comes to climate change and the impact of it on their day-to-day living.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Right. And I suppose, I presume through the course of your work, you’ve gone and visited a number of these communities before, and I suppose… can you give some examples about some of those challenges are? I suppose it touches everything from the harvests that they’re going to be carrying out if they’re working in agriculture, so their daily income, their food. I think before we mentioned about it could prevent school kids from getting their education. Just how broadly is this impacting them and what aspects of life exactly?

Sellah Bogonko:
On the one hand, there’s obviously the adverse effects of climate change, and I’ll give an example of the work that we are doing in an arid county in Kenya, which is called Makueni County, significantly affected by climate, especially because while they try to have regenerative agriculture, it takes a lot more because of the issue of the scarcity of water. So you have to be sort of innovative, especially in certain value chains that are required within the area, but they’re not able to grow them.
So we went in and began to look at how do we find what is economically competitive for them because for example, the county that I used to work in is very rich in agriculture. They have lots of waterfalls streams all over, so it’s easy for them to grow rice and tomatoes and horticulture, but on this other hand, you have to then find out what are those crops that are more resilient that can grow there.
And so we have to map different counties or different local governments to find out what would thrive in this area. And we found that you want to focus on things like aquaculture, for example, that can be more domesticated within conditioned environments. And so we got young people in groups to be able to build the ponds for them, give them the initial capital, but also guarantee the off-take of what they’re producing from that area so that they’re able to find it a lot more easier, much easier rather, to focus on just the activity that they’ve been taught to do, which is aquaculture in this case. And then we focus on making sure that whatever they produce gets to the market and then they’re paid and they continue the cycle. That’s one intervention.
The other one is something like beekeeping, for example. We have a huge deficit when it comes to honey in Kenya and the region. So imagine creating a value chain where these young people have been skilled and given the initial capital for them to be able to produce the honey. And then, of course, the byproducts of what comes with that. And we’re able to guarantee, again, the off-take so that we are able to get that honey produced. And across all these value chains, we are able to create opportunities for young people. So on the one hand, it is a story of resilience in every form of the word, but on the other hand it’s a huge opportunity if you can just be creative around it to make sure that along the value chain we are creating the relevant projects and then also creating the opportunities across the value chain for the young people.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Wow. Yeah, seems like some really interesting ideas. In the past I’ve actually done some reporting on similar, it sounds similar, beekeeping schemes in Liberia. I did some before and that is really helping some of those communities. But I suppose I wanted to touch on one other point was, I saw you described yourself as an Afro-optimist, and I really like this idea of this phrase and to me, and I’d like you to respond I suppose, but just in terms of the way that Africa is perceived as perhaps a victim of climate change and reliant on aid for the West to come and fix the situation even though they’ve created it. But I just suppose for you, what does that term mean exactly?

Sellah Bogonko:
When I think of Africa, I think of a continent that’s going to be home to a quarter of the population when it comes in a couple of years in 2050. When I think of Africa, I see the vast resources, about 30% of the critical minerals in the world are found in Africa. When I think of Africa, I think of the energy of the young people, the youthful population that is available if only that energy can be channeled in the right direction. When I think of Africa, I think of the largest arable land across the world, if only it’s cultivated.
What Africa actually lacks for me from my perspective is leadership. Leadership in the sense that how is it that you can have all this opportunity and all this potential, but you’re not able to use it to your advantage? Because for the most part, if for example, you’re gifted in something, if you’re relying on someone else to come and help you develop that gift, to some extent you are failing yourself first of all and sabotaging yourself. But if you can turn the story around and be able to say, we can actually use this to our advantage, use this as leverage to get more out of this relationship that we have with other continents or other parties or other players in the world.
You rightly said it, that Africa contributes the least when it comes to carbon emissions, but is affected the most. But to some extent, even the issue of waiting on aid is because we haven’t looked below us in terms of our natural resources to say, wait a minute, we actually have what it takes to turn this story around. And that’s why as Jacob’s Ladder, we are focusing on what is the opportunity and how do we take advantage of it, how do we turn it to work for ourselves?
So when I call myself an Afro-optimist, I think of the immense potential that we have in Africa and the emerging excitement in my heart when I think of what can be done and when I look around even in this Skoll World Forum, I’m seeing the investment and the energy and the focus that is shifting towards not just the emerging economies, but Africa in particular.
Last year we had the Africa Climate Summit, and you can tell that the energy not just in the room, but across the continent, when you hear the innovations that are coming up, when you see the young people that are saying whether it’s getting into political leadership or addressing the issue of climate, the innovations that are coming up are amazing, but there has to be the requisite leadership to be able to harness this potential and channel it in the right direction.
And then when we sit at the table, whether it’s at COP or all these negotiations, when you speak about climate finance for example, how is it that 2% of the world’s investment or climate finance investment in renewable energy is all that comes to Africa and yet over 40% of the potential when it comes to renewable energy is what is in Africa. There’s an imbalance somewhere. There’s an imbalance because we’ve let it be there. We need to be able to find how do we turn that story around? And that’s my lifelong dream and hopefully I’m doing my part and will continue to do that through Jacob’s Ladder Africa.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
You make some really interesting statistics there that I wasn’t entirely aware of, but I suppose one of the other resources in Africa, as you point out, is the youth population. And I just wonder to what extent you have personal experience growing up as a girl in Nairobi that you were frustrated with the lack of opportunities for young people or I suppose in other terms where you saw the great potential of your friends and yourself and now you are hopefully beginning to harness that.

Sellah Bogonko:
So when I say that I moved into government, I actually went to work for one of the first elected female governors in Kenya, and that was perhaps one of my eye-openers when it came to what is possible, but also the eye-opener to the reality of what women face when it comes to getting to political positions. But on the other hand, I grew up in the family where my parents taught me that anything is possible. In fact, when we’d come home, and I come from a family of six and we are three boys and three girls, and when it came to conversations around how did you perform in school, it was never based on your gender. It was based on his understanding or their understanding of what you can do and what potential you have. And that’s a mindset I’ve always carried on, but it’s not always been the privilege of everyone around me.
I’ve seen how for the most part, we’ve had to work twice as hard to get half of what, or even a quarter of what men get, but that means that we just have to find a different strategy of going around it. Perhaps we are fighting for the wrong thing. I don’t think we should be fighting for equality in that sense. We should be fighting to be our best versions of ourselves that cannot be achieved on the basis of just gender. We bring a lot to the table uniquely as individuals and as women. So we have to be able to bring that brilliance to the table and make sure that it shines through regardless of the levels you are at because that’s how you’re distinguished, because I’ve seen that the world is opening up a lot more to women leadership and girls in particular and in Kenya now, in fact, there’s another program that’s come up around the boy child because there’s been a lot of attention on the girl child.
But it’s for us to be able to balance that to make sure that regardless of gender, you are actually advancing the cause of making sure that each one of us are maximizing our potential regardless of your background.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And I suppose you set out that great goal, I forgot what exactly it was, it’s 30 million?

Sellah Bogonko:
30 million jobs.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Exactly for the jobs.

Sellah Bogonko:
In Africa in the next 10 years.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
And I just suppose, how have you felt the progress in the steps of that towards that target so far? And I suppose also, what are the main kind of obstacles that you’re going to need to pass in order to reach that target?

Sellah Bogonko:
In terms of the progress, we continue to find ways of scaling what we are doing. Like I said, initially last year we were not working with local governments. We are seeing a lot more of the local governments approaching us and saying, “What can we do together?” Because we realize that government’s role and government’s biggest advantage is ability to convene and to scale programs. And like I said, being a trisector athlete in the sense of having worked in private sector government and now in the development world, I have a unique angle when it comes to design of programs and then being able to scale them. We are rolling out, for example, a waste management program in partnership with one of the counties which has potential to engage 1000s of young people. A similar program was done in Tunisia and over the last six years they’ve done 18,000 young people in one country.
So you can imagine when a model, which is what Africa lacks actually, the design of models as opposed to just projects that come, start and finish. We have to be able to design models that are sustainable not just in addressing the issue of the environment, but sustainable in the sense that long after the project is done, these continue in terms of earning and in terms of benefit to them economically and, of course, environmentally. And so we are finding unique and brilliant ways of scaling what we are doing, especially in partnership with governments. And that’s working wonders.
The challenges that we are facing is finding, like I said earlier, leadership plays a significant role when it comes to one, seeing the opportunity, but then on the other hand, being able to work on something that you have the patience to be able to scale it because some of these programs take a bit of time. In terms of design, for example, a biomass plant takes a bit of time, but then once it’s in place you need visionary leadership that says, we’re going to invest this much, we’re going to invest this much time and resources because we have this intention of getting this done.
But some of those challenges have become easier with time, especially like I said, following the Africa Climate Summit. The issue, like Kenya for example, has deployed a policy to mainstream climate change in every single state department across the country, which is fantastic, meaning that you then have lesser work of convincing the ministry of ICT on why they should go green in a certain projects makes our work easier, but it still means that there’s still work to be done, but not as hard as it could have been.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
I just wonder, do you have any particular examples of these? So I know you mentioned a few things in our discussion so far with, biomass is one approach, but do you have any particular favorite sort of these climate solutions that you think are innovative or interesting that you’re implementing?

Sellah Bogonko:
So one of the things that I mentioned earlier is that as Jacob’s Ladder, we run an early stage startup incubator, and in the process of our work, we bump into brilliant young kids who have amazing solutions. And this is not within our incubator, but one of the other young people that I got to meet recently is a young person who developed an AI tool to discern or to detect logging in forests and detect fire. And this is a young Kenyan who came up with this brilliant idea now being celebrated for the work that they’re doing. He’s just one example of the many.
Kenya is known as the Silicon Savannah for a reason when it comes to us combining tech and climate right now, that’s the hot kick in terms of how do we leverage our tech skills to be able to address the issue of climate and their emerging solutions that are coming up.
Our cohort this year in our incubator is focused on renewable energy. We did a call for application. In less than two weeks, we had 270 applications from across the country, young people with brilliant ideas. And when I think of the kind of solutions that they are deploying right now, whether it’s mobile solutions that are renewable energy powered to offer STEM classes to young people in remote areas in response to the issue I was telling you about, the north and eastern part where the kids are not able to land because of the impacts of climate on migration, but you’re able to take the education to them because of this kind of brilliant young ideas or ideas from young people that are coming up.
So our incubator gives me hope when I think of the amazing solutions that these young kids are coming up with. And our next step now is to get them to the place where they can get funding, because we focus on the early stage because we understand a lot of people don’t want to do the hard work of finding the gems amongst the sand and the soil, but we are doing that hard work so that we are able to build a pipeline for the climate finance that is hopefully going to trickle down to these great ideas.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Yeah, I love that. I haven’t heard that before the Silicon Savannah. That’s a lovely term though. And I think just one more question for you then, Sellah, is to do with, I suppose looking at the big picture, what is the world that you want to create and envisage down the line when you manage to reach all of these goals, what does that world look like for you?

Sellah Bogonko:
In the course of our work, one of the greatest challenges that we’ve faced is first of all for us accessing financing to do the work that we are doing because we see the impact. But then you still have to go into a different space to convince people who have the money to empower you or to support you in the work that you’re doing. We realized that we are a step or a few steps higher than some of these young kids who have brilliant ideas, but probably will never get access to, for example, school or the big donors or big funders or big investors.
And so the world that I would love to see is where that young kid who came up with that brilliant idea of an AI solution to detect logging in the forest, or that young kid who’s come up with a way of measuring your personal consumption when it comes to electricity and help you to earn carbon credits from that, can be able to based on purely their brilliance and their idea access climate finance. That’s increasing across the globe, of course, disproportionately when we look at it from an African perspective, but increasing nonetheless.
The day that we can democratize access to financing so that we can trigger and release the energy that is right now being experienced in Africa when it comes to innovation. When we can see these young kids being able to create jobs for themselves and for other young people, that for me would be the kind of work or the kind of world that I’m working towards together with my team.
And then of course, on the other hand, where leaders can see, African leaders in particular can see the immense potential and unfair competitive advantage that Africa has right now. And take the advantage of it by not just putting policies in place, but working hard to make sure that whatever is required structurally, institutionally, policy-wise, legislatively, is in place to enable the continent to be able to take advantage of this position and opportunities. That would be life-changing.

Peter Yeung (interviewer):
Well, brilliant. Thank you so much then for your time. It was really, really amazing to hear from your work.

Sellah Bogonko:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.