Basecamp: my first experience of Friends of the Earth

Jannat Hossain

25 July 2013

As a passionate environmentalist, university graduate Jannat Hossain has been following the work of Friends of the Earth for several years but has never really had the chance to get involved - until now. Here she blogs on her first experience of Friends of the Earth's annual gathering for environmental activists, and on her ambitions for Young Friends of the Earth.

I was fortunate enough to win tickets through Friends of the Earth's Get Gobby competition. My friend and I came up with the idea of 'Meat Free May' as a way of persuading people to eat less meat - people get sponsored for cutting out meat from their diets during May, and the money raised goes to Friends of the Earth's future food campaigns.

By the time we got to Basecamp we were fired up and ready to learn about issues we were both super-enthusiastic about. As recent graduates we were also looking forward to learning in a non-academic environment.

The first session I attended was 'Intro to local campaigning'. I was surprised to find out that a lot of the work Friends of the Earth does is actually directly from the grassroots up. I thought this was absolutely brilliant as I know from working with community organising groups that this type of campaigning can be very effective whilst at the same time bringing communities together.

I really enjoyed speaking about 'Meat Free May' at the low-carbon cook-off and it was inspiring hearing about other people's food-related stories. It was great to see so many people engaged with the issue of the impact of food production on our natural environment. Hopefully, Young Friends of the Earth will pilot Meat Free May next year so watch this space!

The session on incorporating diversity into the environmental movement was especially eye-opening and it was great to hear about other people's stories on encouraging people from minority groups to actively get involved in our fight against climate change.   

I hadn't even heard of Young Friends of the Earth until I actually got to Basecamp; by the time I was leaving I had not only decided to run for a position on the Steering Group but I was excitedly telling anyone that would listen about my ideas for the group.  
 
Whilst at university, I campaigned for better environmental practices across the institution and had some big wins. Having put that chapter of my life behind, I'm now incredibly excited to campaign locally and nationally with all the wonderful people at Friends of the Earth. See you all at Basecamp 2014!