MELATI WIJSEN award-winning climate activist, César-nominated film star and soon-to-be-author isn't quite on a regular WhatsApp basis with Greta Thunberg, but she is certainly delighted to count the Swedish icon as one of her 76,000 followers on Instagram.
The Indonesian-Dutch 22-year-old has shared many a stage with Thunberg since she founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags NGO said to (BBPB), the youth-driven have inspired the single-use plastic ban on her home island of Bali in 2019.
Wijsen launched the initiative with her younger sister and "best friend" Isabel when they were just 12 and 10 years old, after being inspired by a lesson in school about global figures from Mahatma Gandhi to Lady Diana.
The result was an inspirational story of their own: in 2017 they threatened to go on a hunger strike over Bali's plastic pollution crisis. The governor agreed to meet them, and two years later he signed an island-wide order banning plastic bags, straws and styrofoam.
That project was to be the launchpad for a glittering changemaking career. Wijsen has since given two TED Talks and shared platforms with Thunberg everywhere from Davos to the UN headquarters in New York.
She jokes that she might not have made it into Thunberg's "inner circle" ("there are a couple of people I would call first before Greta") but she "respects and admires" everything the 20-year-old Swede is doing. "She has accelerated the youth movement to a point where it's never been before, and I think we all have a role to play in what she has done in making the climate crisis a household conversation," she tells me from her hometown on the south-west coast of Bali.
この記事は Evening Standard の February 23, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Evening Standard の February 23, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Only £65k a month to live like Boy George
The Karma Chameleon singer listed his house for £17m in 2022, turning down offers. Now, he's looking for a tenant
Welcome to London, unicorn capital of Europe
We're flying far ahead of anywhere outside US for tech investment
Arteta's Arsenal evolution The next phase
Malik Ouzia and Simon Collings assess how the Spaniard will try to bring down Man City after he signs up for another three years with the title in his sights
Title fight catches fire after Gunners embrace dark side
Arsenal-City clashes take on a welcome edge of animosity
Whack the hippy gong-boho's back
It happened in Paris one grey February day. Sienna Miller was in an oversized, black leather jacket, lace-trimmed silk slip and clumpy great wedges.
There's a Starlink waiting in the sky... 7,000 in fact.Can Elon Musk stop them crashing to Earth?
As he was preparing his fields for seeding this year, Barry Sawchuk came across a giant slab of space debris. It had come from a spacecraft belonging to Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX.
'Politicians are only into power-mongering, corruption and cronyism'
We speak to alt revolutionary DEEPAK CHOPRA about biomarkers, his digital twin and his work to save humanity from disease
I've been waiting for a production of Godotthis brilliant all my life
Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati bring a potent, tragicomic chemistry to James Macdonald’s rich revival of Samuel Beckett’s challenging play.
Trust me, the Ritz is London's bestrestaurant
To whom we turn in moments of gloom and glory can be instructive, a filter of our truest friends. I've fallen out with the Ritz a couple of times, including once after a visit to the bar which didn’t warrant a review (“But you said it was lovely!” they said.
'Healing is a dirty word'
After four traumatic years, FKA twigs is back with a new album -and a thrilling metamorphosis