Interview with Tatheer Fatima

By Sonya Peres

During my postgraduate degree, I noticed a gap in academic literature on how immigrants and members of diasporas in Western countries experience climate action. It seemed odd, considering in the UK 14% of the population are immigrants born elsewhere (University of Oxford, 2019). In cities like Toronto, where I grew up, nearly half the residents were born elsewhere (Government of Canada, 2019).

When I moved to Edinburgh to study in 2018, I noticed community organisations developing initiatives to support climate action. I later learned about the Climate Challenge Fund, a government programme allocating funding to communities to deliver programmes to improve carbon literacy. The Climate Challenge Fund has, in a way, helped to make climate action mainstream in Scotland. Its funding allows many community organisations whose resources are used to provide social services, to also learn more about the climate crisis and how to take action.

Tatheer Fatima at the NKS offices and allotment in Edinburgh.

Having grown up in an Indian family and moved to Canada as a young child, I wanted to understand what climate action in a host country meant for the South Asian community. What were the discourses around my community taking climate action? How would it benefit them? How would it benefit the planet? Why should the South Asian community participate in climate action - don’t we have other things to worry about?

Thus began my professional and personal relationship, a formative one to say the least, with Networking Key Services, more commonly known as NKS (formerly Nari Kallyan Shangho) and its members.

NKS has been running its CCF-funded programme, Low Carbon Communities Initiative, since 2018. The programme runs activities on reducing food waste through cooking classes, cycling and walking in Edinburgh and my personal favourite, vegetable gardening at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Amid COVID-19, the programme has been remarkable in moving online, offering cooking and gardening classes on everyone’s new favourite platform, Zoom.

Tatheer Fatima is the CCF Coordinator at NKS. Tatheer is a powerhouse. She works tirelessly to ensure the programme is inclusive, effective and engaging. She is also a mother, and friend to many (thankfully including myself).

In the summer, I sat down with Tatheer (socially distanced, of course) to discuss her journey with climate action and her work with the Climate Challenge Fund at NKS. Please note, all responses are paraphrased.

 How did you first become interested in climate change and the climate crisis?

In Pakistan, my mother grew food and I used to help her. This sparked my interest in sustainability.

When I graduated, I worked as a research assistant with an organisation developing policy on energy and the environment and understanding its implementation and impact on people in Pakistan. So I started learning more about the environment and electricity, and the relationship between those two, particularly in regards to policy.

That’s how I developed my knowledge of and interest in climate change. In countries like Pakistan,  there can be a gap between policy and implementation, partly because many people don't think about the climate and are not interested in it. This is partly because there is not enough media coverage or education on climate issues. Some people still don't know what they are doing for the betterment of the environment or that the things they do affect the climate. I became interested in why certain people were not engaged with climate issues.

Later,  I had to move from, from Pakistan to Edinburgh with my husband. I resigned from my job. I came here. And I was hired for the CCF project.

Sonya - What were some initial challenges in running the CCF project?

Tatheer - When I first started working for the CCF project, I was amazed at how much people in Scotland were doing for the climate. Communities were doing so many things - they were so active.

But the South Asian community we were working with saw the climate crisis the same way as communities back in Pakistan. They weren’t engaged and they were reluctant to get involved - they weren’t serious about the topic. That was the first challenge.

It was the same community as in Pakistan, so their background was the same. But I could see that lots of communities in Scotland were doing really well with sustainability. So closing the gap between the NKS community and other communities in Scotland was very challenging. It was challenging to make our people understand that the topic is not boring.

Sonya  - Yeah, and that it's, it's related to us and our lives.

Tatheer - Yeah, it's related to your normal life. The second challenge was that many people were already practicing sustainable behaviours in their home countries and didn’t see how it related to the climate or why they should return to those behaviours after moving to Scotland. People would say, “oh, my mom used to do that, or my granny used to recycle this and that.” They didn’t have fancy takeaway. They had to cook their own meals every day. So asking them to go back to what they used to do was difficult. Normally people feel like, “we have developed and we have struggled hard to reach this point, to have a car, to have luxury. And you are asking me to walk again?’

So, that was the challenge, to make them understand and to make it relevant to them. It was a slow and steady process, but by the end of the second year, we began to change the mindset of our community - we were very successful in doing that. We now have lots of engagement in our cycling and walking sessions as well as with our cookery and gardening sessions.

Lastly, COVID has posed some challenges. There is a lack of digital learning in our community, so it was difficult to move everything online. It was a huge task. But we have been successfully in training people with digital skills and moving lots of our activities online, including gardening sessions with Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and cookery sessions.

Sonya - What are your favourite aspects about CCF work?

Tatheer - CCF is not only about climate change. Through the funding, we also interact with other organisations who are doing the same thing, which is networking. So, the CCF also enhances your ability to create a network and engage with others. This is very important.

The funding gives you opportunities to meet and learn and implement new ideas. You can learn something from others or any of the presentations -   there are outstanding people involved in CCF who have already been successful in experimenting with an idea which can help other people. And then organisations can work together to deliver something. So, that is a good part about the programme.

People involved in the project have different strengths. For example,  calculating CO2 emissions from our activities is very technical and many people don’t like it. But it's a very interesting part for me because I have a technical background. So with our energy project,  I can use carbon calculations to see how we are doing. I can see how our activities impact our carbon footprint. I can clearly explain to anyone how this is calculated and how this will impact the environment. When we share our strengths and connect with one another and connect the gaps it becomes a very good output.

My other two colleagues [Manjari Singh and Nazma Rahman] are amazing and they have their own skills.

Sonya - They are lovely - can I guess those skills?

Tatheer - Okay.

Sonya - I think Manjari  is very good at bringing people together. She's very social and caring. I think Nazma is also very good at encouraging people to get involved and saying, “Come on, just do it.”

Tatheer- Manjari, people believe in her words, that's what I would say. She has a very motivating  personality. Manjari and Nazma are a very good addition to this project. With their help, I feel loads of women have changed their habits with walking and cycling more and they're really punctual and committed to joining the sessions.

I used to be a workaholic. Manjari encouraged me to take breaks and walk every day with the CCF walking activity. And now everyday I walk 10 to 15,000 steps every day. My personal life is better. So while the topic of climate change itself is very important, the programme supports us to improve our wellbeing by doing things together like walking or cycling.

Sonya - So the project is about climate change and sustainability, but it's not just about the nature and the environment, it is about people and health. And, feeling like you belong in Scotland, because you're communicating with other networks.

Tatheer- Yes. Whoever is new to the city or to NKS, it's really good to meet them and engage them in these activities. So, overall, I feel like I have learned a lot from the project, in the process of delivering it. There is a very nice, very interesting chemistry between all three of us [Manjari, Nazma and Tatheer, the CCF team].

Sonya - How have you changed since beginning your career as a research assistant? How has your understanding of the climate crisis changed between these two roles and life experiences?

Tatheer- When I was hired as a research assistant, I felt I had less capacity to do certain things and make decisions in a certain way. But now, in this position, I have more freedom to deliver ideas and make decisions. Also the NKS manager is really nice, because whenever I struggle, she pushes me, she says “you can do it” and it always works out and everyone is happy.

It has all been a learning process. I feel my knowledge of the field has been enhanced from my initial studies in my research assistant job. My ability to make decisions has been polished. Sometimes it has been a lot of pressure, but I’ve learned a lot and I love it.

Sonya - That’s great! I have to say that working with NKS has been the best part of my postgraduate degree and I’m happy to continue working with you.

Tatheer- I was happy the day I saw you! We have the same background and education so I knew we would understand each other’s ideas.

Sonya - You’re also a mother. After work, do you go home and try and teach your son about the climate crisis?

Tatheer - I want him to do things for himself and to understand and make decisions for himself. Now kids are different. They are inquisitive. They will ask you “why is he or she is doing that?” If you say “you have to go to nursery,” and that’s it, then they won’t go. My son won't go until I will say “okay, you will get to read stories, you will get to play in the garden. You know, you will enjoy that.” I have to elaborate to make him interested in going to nursery. So it’s the same thing with something like turning off lights. He’s afraid of turning off the lights but I want him to first understand that it saves energy so he can understand it more deeply and be engaged.

 Nowadays, kids have technology and toys we never had, but I try to show him other ways to have fun.

We have allotments and I take him there with me. When we’re there, he always sings “growing, veggies, we’re growing veggies!” He likes to sit with me while I cook vegetables as well. I’m glad that he’ll have these memories for the rest of his life. Hopefully in future he’ll learn more. My husband has learned a lot as well. He has become very interested in gardening and growing produce. I feel I have changed my family in a positive, sustainable, long lasting way.

Sonya - And so my last question is, looking into the future, what do you want to do with the CCF project? Also, how do you see yourself continuing to work in this field and empower women to be sustainable and connect with one another?

Tatheer- For me personally, there are different project targets. Because Edinburgh is a tourist destination, lots of Asians work as taxi drivers, which contributes to carbon emissions, so, I feel we need to do something for those who are doing these jobs.

One idea is to collectively arrange workshops for them. For example, invite speakers to talk to them about the climate crisis and what's happening, especially in the travel field. I also want families to be involved in the programme together and community gardens is a very, very good option for families. Lots of people don't have time, they don't have any interest or maybe they don't have space. Families living in flats or rental properties can’t do much, so introducing a community garden to people living in stressful surroundings is really important.

We’d also like to start providing carbon literacy training to mosque communities - we will see how that goes with COVID-19.  Our engagement will move from women, to families, so we can really influence the communities. Lots of big decisions in Asian families are made by men. So if you teach men, you can influence families in a different way.

Lastly, I want to improve my own education in the field. I think I’d like some higher education in this field, something that is either technical or non-technical. I have been looking into that these days.

Sonya: Do you have anything else you want to say about yourself and climate change at CCF?

Everyone wants to have a very good life.  A person generally thinks, “how can I have a house or a car? I should have a wife or a husband and kids” and that's it. No one thinks about the things in between which is the environment. If a family starts caring for the environment, that will change way of thinking about life. Life will become easier for you. If you don’t have a car, it’s no problem if you think about the environment first and how you are saving carbon emissions.