Climate Justice Camp for Flobamoratas: Consolidation of the NTT Youth Community for Climate Action Through Art

This activity was attended by 152 young people from 12 regions in NTT, including representatives of the VCA alliance from Papua and Bandung, who are involved in not only the environment but also arts and culture, education, children, health and gender. The aim is to build networks between communities so that more people care and take more massive climate action in NTT.

Gilbert Sandy, Chief Executive of GRUF 2024, stated, “Art is a universal language of human expression, so we believe that through art we can also convey positive messages such as forest protection and climate action, therefore we packaged GRUF 2024 with a touch of art and invited all provided training to 20 young artists since last April to create works together through a campaign entitled Art for the Earth.”

Gilbert also said that the selection of these 20 artists started with open recruitment to all young artists from NTT who were selected from a total of 60 artists who registered. Then the selected artists were given basic training and met with several experts such as Akiq AW (Member of MES 56), Ismail Muntaha (Director of Jatiwangi Art Factory), Intan Anggita Pratiwie (Co-Founder of Setali Indonesia), Frengki Lollo (Director of Skolmus), and Manuel Alberto Maia (KFK Filmmaker). After that, the 20 artists were given 3 weeks of creative time to then exhibit at the 2024 GRUF Jamboree.

The GRUF agenda took place from 2-5 May 2024, packaged with the concept of a greencamp or environmentally friendly camp, presenting a capacity strengthening class with the theme “Climate Justice“, a sharing session with 20 selected artists in the form of an Artivism Session, a sharing session from participants in the form of a Human LIVErary Session, sharing local food, barter markets, climate film discussions and screenings, as well as creating climate action plans with 12 KOPI Coalition Regional Executive Committees.

The 2024 GRUF Festival on May 5 was open to the public, so local people could participate and enjoy the art exhibition Art for the Earth. Not only that, there were stage performances from each region, whether through theatre, dance, poetry musicals, or even a community product bazaar.

Dicky Lopulalan, Director of the KOPI Coalition, stated, “We hope that the participants’ awareness of climate change and the ecosystem environment will increase, and this can become a provision for them in carrying out climate campaigns and actions. So that more and more young people will speak out about the current climate crisis. We also hope that this time GRUF can produce an agreement on how to work a network of youth organisations/communities throughout NTT which will be implemented by the participants after this activity.”

Another unique thing is that the 2024 GRUF Jamboree also includes the issue of food security in its climate action campaign because food security is not only about ensuring food is available in sufficient quantities but also about social justice, health, environmental sustainability and human rights. NTT itself has tourism potential and beautiful nature, but on the other hand, limited agricultural land and water availability often become significant obstacles to food security.

Dependence on traditional agricultural products such as corn, rice, sorghum and soybeans is often a risk factor for food security. Climate changes that occur, such as increased drought and changes in rain patterns, are increasingly putting pressure on local food production. Moreover, the land is less fertile, and there is a lack of access to agricultural technology. Modern technology complicates efforts to increase agricultural productivity in various regions. Therefore, the 2024 GRUF Jamboree also invites the wider community to be socially involved by crowdfunding on the kitabisa.com/jagasourcepangan platform. Hopefully, with this activity and the active participation of the community, we can mitigate climate change and ensure food needs are available, and the campaign presented through the work can increase people’s love for nature conservation.

About the KOPI Coalition

The KOPI Coalition, initiated by the Indonesian Forest Association (HII) and the Terasmitra Association (TM), received support for programme implementation from Humanis (previously known as Hivos SEA) through the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) programme, in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) until 2025. The focus of the programme is to foster a sense of love among young people within the movement base in NTT for Indonesian forests by popularising the issue of forest protection through various campaign activities in new, unusual ways, an approach that brings positive, creative and fun messages to follow trends while strengthening the narrative of forest protection with real action as climate action; and attracting the involvement of more partners to collaborate in achieving campaign goals.

Watch the 2024 GRUF Jambore here:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8Jc9FWR8Wk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==