Featured Young Social Leader: Leah Gowing
Leah Gowing
Imani Academy & Co Youth Associate and Retrofit Adviser.
What do you do?
I’m currently studying with Generation UK & Ireland to become a Retrofit Adviser, a role dedicated to making homes more sustainable and energy efficient. The estimated number of UK citizens in fuel poverty was 6.5 million in January 2024. That means almost 10% of the UK population will struggle to keep their homes warm this winter. The role of ‘retrofitting’ is to make homes warmer, which can in turn improve health, wellbeing, and quality of living.
I also work as a yoga teacher to help people feel more connected with their bodies, their emotions and the world around them. There’s so much wisdom that the body holds in terms of our mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and I love guiding people through the process of connecting to that wisdom.
In my spare time I love to craft and upcycle clothes too!
Why do you do what you do?
I designed a Climate Refugee Centre for my final year architecture project at university. This Centre existed in a dystopian future where 8 degrees of warming had forced mass migration. My project research left me upset and frustrated, fuelling a passion for sustainability and climate justice. Over time, I’ve learned not to take the cause on my own two shoulders, as it sometimes felt like I sacrificed my own mental and physical wellbeing. Instead, I look to like minded people as a reminder that it is the sum of all the small things that makes a large impact.
Second, I have an instinctual desire to lean on nature to ‘refresh’. I went on a nature retreat with The Visionaries, at one point spending 10 hours alone with nature to seek clarity in my mind. It was transformative and changed the way I interact with the world. Now, whenever I feel lost or down, I ‘return’ to nature, not just by sitting under a tree or walking through fields but by moving and creating. That’s why I love embodied movement like yoga and creating things with my hands.
What is something you are working on, learning or have an interest in at the moment?
I have a long list of crafting projects I am starting or wanting to start (thanks, Pinterest!). Currently I have a pair of dungarees my friend donated to me which I’m altering and decorating with lino prints of snails (my favourite animal), leaves and flowers. I’m fortunate that in Coventry we have a huge second-hand craft store where artists and creatives donate unused materials for others to buy.
A project that I’ve had on the back-burner is making my own paper and sewing it together to create books. I’ve been collecting scrap paper from my workplaces for months in the anticipation of getting started and it's been piling up in the house, much to my mum’s dismay!
Unfortunately, crafting has to take lower priority on my to-do list and is often something I struggle to find time for. I think an important message is that we’re not perfect, we’re not machines that can operate at maximum capacity every hour of the day. I’ll prioritise watching Netflix to ‘switch off’ rather than doing something society deems as ‘more productive’. The irony is, it takes constant energy to remind myself that that’s okay! We all need rest.
Is there a book, tool or resource that you would recommend, related to the theme or for other young social leaders?
A non-fiction book I recommend for nature-connection is The Secret Life of Treesby Peter Wohlleban. It talks about how an underground network of fungi helps trees to communicate and build relationships with each other, to help their own and other species to survive.
For fiction:When The Sleeper Wakesby H G Wells. Wells wrote it in 1899 to predict how a capitalist society would function at its most extreme. I find his accuracy from so long ago mind-blowing, yet I also feel a sense of shame that we’ve come so close to his predictions. His creativity has inspired me to dream my own ideas for a system where we live in respect and care for nature, rather than as abusers of its resources.
Lastly, in case you prefer podcasts, is The Tim Ferris Show, particularly episode #571 with South African lion tracker Boyd Varty. In this conversation, Boyd tells stories of rites of passage in nature and the deep understanding that these trackers have with their environment and wildlife. I always go back to one of his quotes: “I don’t know where I’m going, but I know exactly how to get there”.
Original featured in Young Social Leaders Newsletter Blog Series - here
