Informal Learning via Faith Communities

Rationale:
London has resident communities representing the major faith communities of the world. People from Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh backgrounds are particularly concentrated in London. This pilot explored the potential of faith as a ‘hook’ to encourage Londoners to take up greener lifestyles. It also considered how sustainability messages could be communicated by making links to faith-based messages of stewardship and creation with the Muslim community in east London.

Pilot aim:
To explore the effectiveness of engaging London Muslims via their religious beliefs, and encourage the take up of more environmentally sustainable behaviours.

Key messages:
Qur’anic teachings (e.g. stewardship/creation) were linked to the environment and sustainable living to encourage behaviour change, e.g. “Eat and drink but do not be wasteful: God does not like wasteful people” (Qur’an 7:31).

Key partners:

• East London Mosque / London Muslim Centre
• Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences
• LB Tower Hamlets
• Tower Hamlets Community Recycling Consortium
• Thames Water
• Energy Savings Trust
• Cycle Training UK
• London Cycle Campaign
• Women’s Environment Network
• Recycle for London

Communication channels used:

• Sermons at the East London Mosque & word of mouth
• Leaflet and product / information distribution
• Radio Ramadan broadcast
• Publicity in the local press

Profile of target audience:
The Muslim community in East London, representing a wide range of ages, ethnicities and socio-economic status.

Motivators and barriers identified:
The call to express Muslim faith through environmental issues was a motivator, as well as incentives (free energy, water saving equipment and information and advice were given out by sustainability experts at stalls during ‘post sermon activity’).
Barriers included a lack of prior awareness of environmental behaviour and, to some extent, consistent infrastructural provision to support this.

Outputs / activities:

• A leaflet, in English, Bengali and Somali, summarising the key messages of the Pilot
• Two environmentally themed sermons, in English, Bengali and Somali, to congregations of over 6,000 worshipers at the East London Mosque
• A Saturday health event, demonstrating the links between sustainable transport options and a healthy lifestyle.
• Environmentally themed radio articles broadcast on a loop during Ramadan, a time of reflection and reinforcing one’s faith, when community members typically listen to relevant radio broadcasts

Evaluative focus group feedback included:

“I reckon that was excellent. That was really really good. [Because} you know what he was saying? It was using Islamic evidence. So all the Muslims that attended the Mosque, now they, it was almost like a religious duty to look after the environment”

“After fitting it [the energy efficient light-bulb] I went to Sainsbury’s and got some more”

“The radio show was good because it goes into everyone’s home – the people not there were able to hear the message”

Our key delivery partner reported that as a result of the initiative, many members of the London Muslim Centre staff were taking forward environmental practices within the workplace and promoting these within the wider community.

Replicability aspects: successes / lessons learned

• Be sure the infrastructure is in place to enable the audience to adopt the new behaviour
• Be sure to take time to build a relationship, understanding and trust with the community you will be working with
• Provide incentives, make your communication relevant and demonstrate the benefits of the behaviour change
• Consider using a variety of communication channels rather than relying on any one, and remember existing community networks might be interested in working in partnership with you
• Develop the campaign with the community to empower them with a sense of ‘ownership’, and enable them to take forward activities on their own in future