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Day after day, children from Asian families in this Lancashire town would assemble prior to going to school. It was the 1970s, a time when the National Front were mobilising, and these youngsters were the offspring of south Asian workers who had moved to Britain ten years before to address employment gaps.

One of these children was Asad Rehman, who had moved to the Lancashire town with his family from Pakistan at the age of four. “We traveled as one,” he recalls, “because it was dangerous to walk alone. The little ones at the center, teenagers forming a perimeter, as there was a threat of violence on the way.”

Things were no better at school. Pupils would make offensive gestures and shout racist insults at them. They shared the National Front newspaper openly in the halls. The black and brown pupils “every day, when the lunch bell rang, we would barricade ourselves into a classroom, because we would be attacked.”

“I initiated conversations to everybody,” Rehman states. Collectively, they resolved to oppose the teachers who had ignored their safety by collectively refusing to attend. “and we will say it was due to the schools aren’t safe for us.” It was Rehman’s initial experience of mobilizing. When he became part of national equality efforts developing across the country, it influenced his views on society.

“We took steps to safeguard our community which taught me that crucial insight remaining with me: collective action is stronger when we are a ‘we’ compared to acting alone. Groups are necessary to organise you and you need a vision to hold you together.”

This summer, he took on the role of head of the environmental charity the well-known activist organization. Historically, the familiar face of environmental crisis was the polar bear in a thawing landscape. Today, to speak of global heating while ignoring systemic unfairness is now almost impossible. He has stood as a leader of this shift.

“I accepted this position due to the severity of the situation out there,” he shared with journalists at a climate justice protest outside Downing Street recently. “We face multiple connected challenges of climate, economic disparity, of economic systems which are biased against ordinary people. It’s ultimately an equity issue.

“And there is only one organisation prioritizing fairness – green rights and global climate fairness – this particular network.”

Having numerous backers plus hundreds of local branches, The organization (Scotland has its own) is the most extensive environmental campaigning network. Over the past year, it spent more than £10m on campaigns from courtroom challenges to government policy grassroots efforts changing municipal practices in public spaces.

But it has – albeit undeservedly – gained a profile as a less radical organisation versus other groups. More bake sales and petitions rather than direct action.

The appointment of someone focused on inequality with his background could be a strategic move to change perceptions.

It's not the first time he collaborated with the charity.

Post-education, he maintained advocating for equality, working with the Newham Monitoring Project in the era as nationalist movements had influence in east London.

“There were initiatives, and it was doing casework, based in neighborhoods,” he says. “This taught me grassroots activism.”

But not content than just responding to racism on the streets and institutional bias he, along with many others, sought to place equality work as a fundamental right. That brought him to the advocacy group, for a long period he collaborated alongside developing world advocates to push for a new approach in the understanding of freedoms. “Previously, Amnesty didn’t campaign on financial and community issues. they concentrated solely on political freedoms,” he notes.

Towards the close of that decade, his efforts through his role connected him with a range of worldwide activist networks. During that period they came together as anti-globalization activists resisting corporate dominance. The insights he gained from them would affect his future work.

“I traveled collaborating with activists, all those was saying how bad climate was, unsustainable practices, forcing migrations,” he recalls. “I thought! Everything we have fought for and secured is going to be unravelled because of environmental collapse. This challenge occurring, it’s called climate – but nobody’s talking about it in those terms.”

This led Rehman to an initial position with Friends of the Earth years ago. Then, most environmental organisations discussed climate change as tomorrow's challenge.

“Friends of the Earth represented the unique activist body that separated away from other green organizations. helping establish of what we now call the climate justice movement,” he declares.

He focused to include perspectives from global south nations during negotiations. This approach wasn't gain widespread approval. Once, he shares, after a meeting involving ministers and green groups, a minister called his chief executive requesting he control his assertive tactics. He declined to specify on which minister it was.

“There was a sense: ‘Who is this person challenge conventions?’ Consider, the environment is a nice thing, discussion is possible. [But] I saw it as a fight against racism, defending rights … fundamentally political.”

Fairness perspectives found acceptance among activists. Simultaneously occurred. rights-based campaigns engaging with ecological challenges.

And so it was that War On Want the trade union-backed {