Indigenous youths use digital tech to fight rural brain drain, empower kampungs

For many young people, particularly those who originally hail from the country’s rural areas, the dream of moving to a city is often viewed as a chance at attaining greater wealth. This does not apply to Modesta Wisa, however, who moved from West Kalimantan to Jakarta in 2014 to teach traditional dance. While volunteering with the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) in the nation’s capital, she became aware of the issue of land grabbing that was plaguing indigenous communities across the country. “While I was volunteering at AMAN, I learned a lot of things, particularly on the land grabbing that was occurring in kampungs, and it turned out that my own kampung had also faced this issue,” Modesta said at a recent AMAN webinar. “After a year volunteering with AMAN, I thought that if I stayed longer in Jakarta, I would not be able to t…