Talking Greene is a series of discussions centered on the idea of sustainability in Kuwait, the group leading this movement, and locating tools to assist the general population in making wiser decisions. As a business owner in the same industry, I believe it is my responsibility to shed a light on local organizations and individuals working to change the way we shop for goods and to increase environmental consciousness both domestically and abroad.

In this edition of Talking Greene, we got to know more about Mariam AlSaad, the founder of AlManakh Nonprofit Organization. With a degree in Civil and Structural Engineering and an M.Sc. in Sustainable Cities, Mariam has used her vast knowledge to start an important initiative focusing on raising awareness of climate change and global warming in Kuwait since 2021.

Climate change is such an important topic worldwide. How did you decide to launch and NGO on this subject?
I started AlManakh in July of 2021. It started because I had just finished my master’s degree, and the main focus of my research was looking at how Kuwait can be more sustainable. I realized that there was a huge gap in terms of education, and in terms of the implementation of projects when it comes to sustainability and climate change awareness. So, the nonprofit started purely out of my own passion of me wanting to see the change happen, and not wanting to wait to see it happen. At first, I started by doing small events with other nonprofits and other people interested in the field in Kuwait. Since then, it’s been growing slowly and has become a massive passion project of mine.

Do you mostly work with organizations or individuals?
We work with both. We work with other local nonprofits, regional, and international nonprofits as well as international organizations. Simultaneously, we work with individuals and philanthropists who are very much interested in our field. Some of those individuals we’ve been working with are local experts who have been doing it for 20 years and some who have been interested in this field for like two years. Our goal is also trying to build up an actual community of people interested in climate action. Most of the work that we’re doing caters around young people and increasing their awareness of the climate at a much younger age. Therefore, as they grow older, they are more knowledgeable and aware of their responsibilities towards doing their part to their local community, hopefully. The demographic of young people that we are focusing on are starting from elementary school to university, where they can grasp the knowledge we are sharing with them and how important climate awareness really is, especially in Kuwait.

What hurdles and struggles have you faced when it came to AlManakh’s goals to raising climate awareness in Kuwait?
It’s very challenging in terms of actually getting support from the government, because we’ve been trying to connect with the institutions, we’ve been inviting them to our events, trying to get them to participate. We send out invitations to all the stakeholders every time we do anything and we rarely really ever get any feedback. Generally, they’ve been very quiet. Our role is actually to support the government and support government projects as well as the community. Another challenge is the fact that there is a lack of awareness about climate change, and it’s not really people’s fault. It’s just that we don’t have an education system that supports that kind of science-based thinking, we don’t have information that’s available in Arabic. This is where we also come in and help; we do a lot of the work in providing information in Arabic to people doing our events and the information we are talking about. The majority of our events are in Arabic, as well as the content we provide online, making sure that it’s in both languages, English and Arabic. Hopefully in this way we can touch base people from as many backgrounds as we can.

Did you face other challenges regarding local society from the aspect of educating individuals about such a topic?
What is most challenging is that some people in society can be quite selfish in regard to not caring about the environment. What does not affect them personally, they don’t care about and do not waste their time with, and that’s the main challenge we face. We have to show them the big picture and how it will affect every single individual around the world, including future generations of their family. When mentioning the drastic increase in temperatures in the last couple of years they would reply by saying yes, we noticed it, but it doesn’t really bother them to even question why this is even happening and how serious of a problem it is.

What can the readers expect from AlManakh in the foreseeing future?
For 2024, we intend to expand our operations. We have a few internship and education programs that we are going to introduce to people in Kuwait who might be interested in climate work. It’s also for young people who study or have backgrounds in environmental sciences, or fields relevant to it to get some experience for what they’re planning to do in the future. We’re focusing on things that they should know about Kuwait, and we’re focusing on creating positive attitudes about climate change. We are also going to provide sustainability training for private sector companies, to promote sustainable practices and advocate for change. Likewise, we are going to continue to lobby government agencies to implement better climate solutions. Not only that, but we are also in the process of conducting multiple research projects regarding climate change in Kuwait and we hope to release some of our data soon.

For more information about AlManakh, check out @almanakhkw on Instagram and X or visit their website www.almanakhkw.org.