Meet Anna Oposa, our change maker based in Metro Manila, Philippines. 

As chief mermaid and executive director of Save Philippines Seas, an organization she spearheaded in 2011, Anna is mobilizing citizens and effecting positive change in her country’s public school system around environmental education. The inspiring writer, speaker, and environmental conservation consultant for prominent national and global organizations is an enthusiastic extrovert who is as happy under the sea as she is working with people of all stripes on land for projects around waste management, shark conservation, ocean health and circular economies. For her tireless campaigning and change-making, Anna has won awards and distinctions, and she has also co-authored a couple books.

In this episode, Anna, whose background is in musical theater, reveals the event that led to her to completely shift focus and start Save Philippine Seas—as well as the struggles with imposter syndrome and bureaucracy she’s risen above. The lifelong Little Mermaid fan also shares her positive outlook on the future and what she’s personally doing to ensure it is sweet. 

Meet Purnima Shrestha, our change maker from Nepal, who inspires and incites action through her incredible accomplishments in mountaineering and photojournalism. Her climate change activism around the Himalayas and gutsy goal of climbing the world’s 14 highest peaks make her a compelling figure in multiple arenas. 

In 2017, Purnima scaled her first peak: Mount Manaslu, which is the world’s eighth highest mountain at 8,163 meters. And last year she became the first Nepali woman to climb the country’s seven 8,000-meter peaks, including Annapurna I and Mt. Everest, which became her fascination after photographing it up close on assignment. 

In this episode, Purnima’s friend, journalist Kafle Shristi, translates her stories of determination and natural beauty as well as her thoughts on wrestling with self doubt and fear in the face of life-or-death situations.

Meet Dr. Anuar Abdullah, our Malaysian change maker based in Borneo.

Coral reefs are his absolute speciality, and Anuar is a lifelong advocate, author and conservationist in the field who in 2004 invented and patented a coral catalyst used around the world to rehabilitate reefs. Born and raised on Malaysia’s east coast, he studied oceanography in Florida before returning to his home country in 1981 and kicking off his then-misunderstood mission. Anuar founded Ocean Quest Global, which is a group dedicated to recreating the ocean’s life cycle, and has been actively diving and researching for some 40 years. Recently, he took on the four-year rehabilitation of Thailand’s Maya Bay, which is an inspiring ongoing success story. 

In this episode, Anuar reflects on the personal and professional challenges he’s come up against throughout his career and the myriad reasons he chooses to focus time and energy on education.

Meet Shaway Yeh, our change maker based in Shanghai, China.

As China’s foremost sustainable fashion pioneer, Shaway is an influential leader and speaker who has helped positively shape the world’s largest source of clothing manufacturing and consumption in recent years. After finding success in fashion media—as group style editorial director of Modern Media Group, editorial director of Modern Weekly, fashion director of GQ Taiwan, and co-creative director of global video platform Nowness—she shifted her focus to affecting change in the sustainable fashion industry. In 2017, Shaway founded her agency, YehYehYeh, and, in 2019, earned Harvard University’s Corporate Sustainability and Innovation Graduate Certificate. She is a special advisor to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Green Carpet Fashion Awards and Kering Generation Award, as well as co-creative director of Nowness.

In this episode, Shaway discusses the epiphany that led her to rethink everything about her career, and reveals shocking facts about the fashion industry’s impact on our planet but also some of the inspiring actions being taken to counteract it.

Meet Kathy Eldon, our change maker from Malibu, California.

During her decades-long career spanning three continents and multiple disciplines—including journalism, film and television production for CNN, Netflix, Columbia Pictures and more, and authoring bestselling books—Kathy became an expert at transforming trauma and heartbreak into positive action. A rousing and influential storyteller, she has dedicated her life to helping fellow visionaries impact change through artistic endeavours, in part through Creative Visions Foundation, which works in 35 countries. In 1998, Kathy co-founded (with her daughter, Amy) the nonprofit organization as a tribute to her son, Dan Eldon, who was violently killed at just 22 years old while working as a photojournalist in Somalia. Their collaborative work has so far impacted more than 100 million people, many of them children and young people. Kathy has been honoured across the globe for her hope-filled work.

In this episode, Kathy describes her path from miserable suburban housewife to Kenya-based journalist, storyteller and, ultimately instigator of change. Her magic power is re-shaping grief into creative action, education and empowerment, and helping others do the same.

Meet Wayan Wardika, our change maker from Bali, Indonesia.

Wayan is an in-demand Balinese sustainability activist and leader who has spearheaded immense changes and education around waste management and organic farming practices. His passion project, #BringBackTheLight, tackles conservation and regeneration of fireflies, critical indicators of a healthy environment. After working diligently to pay his way through high school, excelling at university, and working at hotels on Bali and abroad plus Disney Cruise Line, Wayan began a meaningful new chapter of his life at age 40 in his home village of Taro. There, he led an award-winning push to explore community-based tourism and supports communities around Indonesia in developing rural and regenerative tourism.

In this episode, Wayan shares the awakening that, for him, began at childhood and his belief that having incredibly limited resources actually shaped him for the best. The sustainability leader delves into the importance of fireflies and his glittering vision for a planet full of them in a century. 

Meet Somsak Boonkam, our Change Maker from Thailand.

Founder of community-based travel operator @localalike, Somsak’s goal is to bring economic opportunities to local communities through responsible and sustainable tourism. His team has worked with over 200 communities across 46 provinces in Thailand to develop and manage their own authentic, meaningful and localised tours that benefit the destination while staying competitive with mainstream tourist activities.

Somsak has also been part of Ashoka Fellows since 2016 and recognised in Tatler Asia’s Generation T for Social Entrepreneurship. In this episode, he talks about his personal journey as an entrepreneur and the lessons learnt from building the innovative and inclusive model at Local Alike.

Meet Shaneel Lal, our Change Maker based out of New Zealand.

A law student, columnist, activist and political commentator, the LGBTQIA rights activist spearheaded the campaign that led New Zealand to ban the controversial practice of conversion therapy earlier this year.

Lal was also recently included in the New York University Centre on International Cooperation’s first cohort of Young Justice Leaders and has been featured in Vogue, The Guardian, and Forbes’ 30 under 30. Most recently, they are a feature writer for New Zealand Herald, the largest national daily in the country.

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