Emmanuela Shinta

Emmanuela Shinta is a Dayak leader, activist, environmentalist, filmmaker and writer with a reputation for leading and empowering young indigenous people. In 2016, Shinta started the Youth Act Campaign, a movement which calls out for young people to actively engage in demanding climate justice and involve in climate action as the response to forest fire and haze that has happened in Kalimantan since 1997. Today, more than 200 young leaders from all across the island join as the main force of the green movement and hundreds of volunteers.

She has trained more than 170 young indigenous filmmakers and directed 18 indigenous films. She is the founder of Ranu Welum Foundation, International Indigenous Film Festival Network, and Alive Global Ministry which focuses on charity and healing. Shinta has been travelling the world for a storytelling tour with art performance, book reading, video showcase about Kalimantan and the Dayaks. She has been giving speeches and lectures about youth environmental activism and indigenous rights. She wrote a book in English entitled Me, Modernism and My Indigenous Roots which is about her life as an indigenous woman in the midst of industrialization and environmental destruction, and her journey to activism. She has been featured in UNICEF Global White Paper Women Health & Climate (2017), Asian Geographic issue 117 Planet Under Fire,  Age of Nature (2020), TEDx Talk (2020), The Guardian (2021).