Dina Maria Danomira

DTP alumna Dina Maria Danomira is an Indigenous Peoples rights and climate justice advocate in Jayapura,  Papua, Indonesia. She belongs to the Moor, Biak and Wondama Peoples in the Saireri Territory of Papua.

Kankain Karkara is the Indigenous council for Dina’s tribe and she reports to the elders and the Chief. Dina leads youth engagement, documentation of human rights violations and international advocacy.

In 2010, as a young leader, Dina was trained by former US Vice President Al Gore as an Inconvenient Youth.   Inconvenient Youth is a global teen climate education program.

She has represented her people in a number of multilateral platforms including the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). She has also participated in the UN Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) –  COP16 in Cancún, COP17 in Durban and COP18 in Doha and COP 30 in Brazil. She was UN OHCHR Indigenous Fellow in 2024.

Dina was introduced to DTP by Joshua Cooper, a longstanding friend and trainer for DTP. They met at Geneva during EMRIP. Dina was very impressed by the DTP training because for the first time she felt that she was participating in a training that provided a space to gather more than knowledge and skills…to Dina it was a space to be part of a community of rights defenders and form long term relationships. “I still stay connected with my friends  I met at DTP training and we are planning a meeting soon.”

She listed a number of skills she developed in the program including peoples’ diplomacy, adaptability, more systematic advocacy.

“DTP trained me to understand how the  UN mechanism works. I also understand now more about how things are happening behind just within the UN itself. We have also received first hand experience of engaging with the diplomats. For example, we had a meeting with DFAT staff, working in Timor-Leste, and had a time to chat with them, and talk to them about issues. That was a good exposure”

Dina says she grew up in two worlds, in Papua and in Australia as her parents went to Australia for higher education. In her younger years she moved a lot between Australia and Papua.

“Moving between the countries opened my eyes to the injustice that is happening in West Papua, and how in another country Australia in the same world, not far from me, there’s a life that is totally different.”

The  Indonesian military presence has been increasing in West Papua, responding and contributing to more conflict, and leading to large scale internal displacement, now estimated as over 120,000 Indigenous Papuans forced from their homes.  The internally displaced are facing hunger and children are denied their right to an education.  While Indonesia is a democracy, Papua increasingly feels as it if is under military occupation and rule, more of a colony than a province.

Dina wants DTP consider organising a training in West Papua.

Dina attended the 33rd Annual Human Rights & People’s Diplomacy Training Program in Timor-Leste, 2025