The answer wasn’t simple, but it was enough to stir something within her. Long before she called herself an activist, Alya was already standing up for others fighting for gender equality in a town where child marriage and sexual harassment were everyday realities. But when the floods came, and her grandfather’s crops began to fail, she realized that climate injustice is not just an environmental issue, it's a human one, and it always hits the vulnerable first.

Her realization became the seed of Speak Out Youth Indonesia, a grassroots movement built not on privilege or resources, but on empathy and the stubborn belief that young people can lead. It began in Alya’s  high school years, when she decided to turn frustration into action, founding a small space where children, girls, and youth from marginalized communities could learn about activism.

“It wasn’t easy,” Alya said. “Our voices weren’t always seen as important, especially for women and young people trying to speak about the environment.” But it was precisely that silence that pushed her to keep going.

Speak Youth became a community where young people who feel powerless discover they are anything but. A growing movement that trains teenagers to understand climate science, visit landfills and forests, map problems in their schools, design hands-on solutions, and bring their ideas into national and global forums.

Alya calls them Climate Warriors.