“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway
We love stories about people who change the world young. They make us believe that courage arrives fully formed; that some people simply know what they are here to do. By the time someone has addressed world leaders, built an international movement or become the face of a cause before turning twenty, it is tempting to imagine they have always possessed an unwavering certainty.
Melati Wijsen quickly dismantles that illusion.
At twelve, she co-founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags, a campaign that began with one simple ambition—to rid Bali of plastic bags—and grew into a global youth movement. Later came YOUTHTOPIA, an organisation supporting young changemakers around the world. Yet when Julia Middleton asks her to choose five objects that represent what she has learned over the past twelve years, Melati doesn’t point to awards, newspaper headlines or campaign milestones.
Instead, she reaches for a notebook, a wall of photographs, a tiny glass heart, the reminder to listen and, unexpectedly, a pair of crutches. Together, they tell a very different story. Not one about changing the world. But about staying yourself while trying to.
Learning When to Leave the Notebook
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Melati laughs as she holds up the first object. “I’ve got over… I did the count actually the other day… I think I have over 29 booklets filled from front to end.”
Those notebooks have travelled almost everywhere with her. They have been packed into handbags for nights out, carried on hikes and quietly opened in the middle of unexpected conversations. While other people might remember an interesting discussion and promise themselves they’ll think about it later, Melati reaches instinctively for a pen.
“The craziest conversations always happen when you’re least expecting it,” she says. “I first listen, digest, reflect it in my notebooks… it’s like a cooking pot… when I write it down, it becomes real.”
For her, reflection is not an indulgence. It is preparation. Before she communicates an idea to a team or shapes the message behind a campaign, she first has to understand it herself. The pages become a quiet place where thoughts are tested without judgement.
But Julia senses another tension lurking beneath the habit. Can reflection become too comfortable? Can waiting for clarity slowly become another form of avoiding action? Melati’s answer is immediate because she has lived it.
YOUTHTOPIA, the organisation she now dedicates herself to, lived in those notebooks for four years. The idea arrived when she was fifteen, yet she did not speak publicly about it until she was nineteen. During those years she refined business models, imagined structures and searched endlessly for the perfect version.
Looking back, she wishes she had simply begun. “I was so obsessed with having everything correct,” she admits, “that… I may have missed a couple of opportunities.” Then comes perhaps the most liberating sentence of the conversation.
“What are you brave enough to share that’s not fully formed yet?… This is a half-cooked idea. Help me out to make it fully finished.”
We often assume confidence means presenting polished answers. Melati suggests something far more generous. Sometimes confidence is allowing other people into the thinking before it is complete. The notebook matters but eventually, the notebook has to close.
There Is No Such Thing as a Typical Changemaker
The second object is not something Melati carries. It is something she sees every day. Covering one wall of her office are photographs of people whose work inspires her.
“They’re a strong reminder that I’m not alone,” she says. “They’re also a strong reminder that there are so many diversities and strengths that belong in our generation.”
When she first began campaigning, she believed there was a certain image associated with creating change. There was a way to speak, a way to dress and a way to behave if you wanted to be taken seriously. The wall exists to challenge that belief.
“Whether you’re a talented photographer or a musician or a cook or an artist,” she says, “there’s so many ways people are contributing.”
Nothing illustrates that lesson better than the story of her sister. The two sisters launched Bye Bye Plastic Bags together as children. During monthly meetings, Melati naturally found herself chairing discussions, working through agendas and planning campaigns. Her sister discovered something different. She loved preparing the meals. She believed the best conversations happened around food. Rather than pursuing campaigning full-time, she trained as a chef.
“I always say she went from changemaker to chef,” Melati smiles. “But actually she’s still a changemaker—just changing the way she’s contributes.”
It is a beautiful reminder that purpose is not tied to a job title. Some people inspire through speeches. Others build movements through spreadsheets. Others quietly create the spaces where conversations happen, people feel welcome and communitiesflourish.
Each contribution is different, yet each is essential. Julia picks up on another danger. Founders are often placed on pedestals until everyone starts trying to become copies of them—”mini Melatis”, as she puts it. Melati has heard exactly that. Parents have told her, “I wish my kid was more like you.” Schools have said, “We want to raise a generation of Melatis.” Her response is immediate. “No.”
“We need to empower each and every one of us to feel switched on and passionate about ourselves, our skills, and feel confident to contribute that back into a shared goal.”
Perhaps that is the greatest misunderstanding about change. It is not created by finding extraordinary people and asking everyone else to imitate them. It grows when ordinary people discover that their own strengths matter.
Kindness Is Not Always Comfortable
The smallest object Melati brings is a tiny glass heart given to her by her mother. She carries it with her whenever she travels because it reminds her to be kind—not only to others but also to herself.
“I am very serious and very strong on myself,” she says. “I’m also very demanding with those that work with me… this is a strong reminder… to be kind.”
Yet kindness, Julia suggests, is more complicated than it first appears. Sometimes doing the right thing feels deeply uncomfortable. Growing up in Indonesia, Melati explains, there were powerful expectations placed on a young girl: stay quiet, be respectful, do as you are told.
Yet campaigning demanded something entirely different.
“You have to speak up. You have to call people out. You make things uncomfortable in rooms that are so used to staying comfortable.”
The point is not to provoke for the sake of it. It is to recognise that protecting the bigger picture occasionally requires challenging the smaller one. Julia remembers advice from her father that has stayed with her for years.
“The job… is sometimes to be completely unreasonable,” she reflects. To push for something everyone else believes is impossible. To risk being perceived as unkind because the long-term goal demands it. Melati agrees, but adds an important distinction.Different audiences require different conversations. Communities already experiencing the climate crisis hear the message differently from politicians who have only encountered it in reports and presentations. The purpose remains constant. The language must adapt. Being grounded, she says, means remembering why you are speaking in the first place.
Listening Without Losing Yourself
Listening is one of Melati’s greatest strengths, but she has also learned that listening has limits.
“We’ve got two ears and one mouth,” her mother always tells her. Listening helps people understand why others have not yet changed, what obstacles they face and how solutions can genuinely serve them.
The mistake comes afterwards.
“You have to listen,” she says, “but don’t try and be everything to everyone… we start to become who we are not.”
She smiles while describing the endless advice she has received from business advisers.
Another website.
Another pitch deck.
Different colours.
Different fonts.
The first few times, she spent weeks redesigning everything. Eventually she realised the real question was not whether the advice was good. It was whether it served the purpose she cared about.
“I know… what I want to achieve and where I want to go.”
Confidence, she has discovered, is not pretending to know everything. It is recognising when your own instincts deserve as much attention as everyone else’s opinions.
Becoming Someone Else Is Exhausting
Perhaps the most moving moment comes when the conversation turns to burnout. Melati describes her first experience of it at just fifteen. Not because the work itself overwhelmed her. Because she was trying to become the person everyone else expected.
“Melati the changemaker.”
“Melati the activist.”
“Melati the serious soul in a young body.”
“And sometimes,” she says quietly, “all I wanted to do was… go to a party… or go for a dance with my first boyfriend.”
Julia gently reflects back what she has heard.
“Your first burnout was because you were adjusting to everything everybody else thought you were.” It is a sentence that reaches far beyond activism. Many of us become exhausted not because we care too much, but because we slowly replace ourselves with everyone else’s expectations. Staying grounded, Melati realises, is really about staying recognisable to yourself.
What the Crutches Taught Her
The final object is the most unexpected. A training injury left Melati with torn ligaments and weeks on crutches. For someone who thinks while walking, brainstorms while pacing and talks while moving, being forced to sit still felt almost unbearable. Yet stillness revealed something movement had hidden. She could not do everything. She never could.
“I have no idea how to set up a website,” she laughs. “I have no idea how we can get a meeting with the educational ministry. And that’s okay.”
The lesson was not simply learning to ask for help. It was discovering that offering help matters just as much.
“The most comforting thing,” she says, “is when I hear someone say, ‘How can I help you?'”
Communities thrive because people move in both directions—sometimes asking, sometimes offering. As the conversation draws to a close, Julia gathers the threads together.
She speaks of balancing inward reflection with outward action, of being brave enough to share half-cooked ideas, of celebrating different ways of contributing, of listening without trying to implement every piece of advice, and finally of asking for help while also offering it.
“Neither works without the other,” she says.
Perhaps that is what staying grounded really means. Not standing perfectly still. Not having every answer. Not carrying the weight of change alone.
But returning, again and again, to the quiet habits that remind us who we are—even while everything around us is changing.
