Alethea Phillips
Alethea Phillips - Indigenous Youth Leadership initiative program Director
Alethea Phillips is an Indigenous and environmental rights activist from the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and Iowa. She is 22, and serves as the Lead Organizer of Native Youth Alliance an Indigenous grassroots organization which aims to create safe spaces, provide leadership training, and uplift indigenous youth.
At the age of 17 she began organizing after she heard of the Dakota Access Pipeline. She spent the winter throughout the eviction at the Standing Rock Prayer Camps where she began her work with media at the MASH (Media Artist Serving Humanity) tent.
Alethea has spent the following years continuing to work for Indigenous voices to be heard in the discussion on climate change. She has worked within Indigenous, divestment, and anti-extraction movements for the past 3 years.
She began working within a global platform when she represented her organization at the United Nations Indigenous Peoples Permanent Forum. She has spoken the past two years at the forum about protection of Indigenous land from extraction industries, and indigenous language preservation. She has worked globally as a Delegate in SustainUS first ever all Indigenous delegation to COP25. She has worked with youth within her own tribal community and nationally on encouraging youth leadership, and organizing youth led movements.