Annabelle Le Jeune

• Annabelle originally hails from Miami but has spent the last eight years living in Hawaiʻi. She has traveled to over 20 countries in pursuit of storytelling. 
• She received three awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for best student feature writing, photography, and video news for her story, “Why A Hawaii Sculptor Keeps Returning To The Same Hill In India.” 
• When the IUCN’s World Conservation Congress was held for the first time in the United States in 2016, Annabelle reported on ocean sustainability efforts, which included an interview with renowned scientist Jean-Michel Costeau.

Experience

Annabelle is a Hawaiʻi-based freelance writer, as seen in Rewire News Group, Clean Plates, Frolic Hawaii, Ka Wai Ola News, and Honolulu Civil Beat. See more on her online portfolio.

Annabelle’s multicultural background and studies in global citizenship backbone her work to bridge the gap for marginalized people, especially AANHPI, to equally obtain access to resources, rights, and voice. Annabelle has traveled to over 20 countries for grassroots, international exchanges in places like India and Indonesia to support efforts toward humanitarian and environmental justice.

Annabelle’s journey into storytelling stems from her islander roots. Growing up in a primarily Hispanic Miami, surrounded by enclaves of islands and coastal nations, her mother’s Indo-Chinese background left her with many questions and few answers. 

Annabelle has spent much time working in the nonprofit sector, including completing a summer internship with the Global Citizenship Alliance in Salzburg, Austria. She stayed in Schloss Leopoldskron, where the Sound of Music is filmed. Later, she worked for three summers with a sister program, the Global Citizenship Institute in Massachusetts. 

She also spent a year in an Americorps conservation program at a historic Native Hawaiian site that utilizes indigenous and contemporary knowledge and science to preserve the valley. Her boots-on-the-ground time shed light on how the interconnectedness between land, water, and people is essential to a sustainable lifestyle. More recently, Annabelle volunteered for six months in Indonesia, providing educational resources to children in Sumatra and Bali. 

Currently, she is the program outreach specialist for the Hawaiʻi nonprofit, Partners in Development Foundation. Annabelle is the lead communications liaison for the globally recognized project by the Kellogg Foundation, “Kawailoa: A Transformative Indigenous Method to Replace Youth Incarceration.”

Education

Annabelle studied English and journalism with a focus on environmental and cultural issues at the University of Hawaiʻi. She studied abroad in Spain, interned in Austria, and became the first journalism student to travel internationally to complete their capstone project. She was the Fall 2017 commencement keynote student speaker, where she shared the importance of being the writer of your own story. 

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