Austin Bohras Celebrate World Environment Day

To mark World Environment Day on June 5th, we spoke to two members of the Dawoodi Bohra community of Austin, Texas, about their Project Rise voluntary work to preserve and enhance the natural environment.

Hussain Ali, a born and bred Texas ranch boy, has inherited a green thumb…

“I grew up in the country in a little town called Shepherd, Texas.  My parents were passionate about planting fruit trees, gardening and landscaping.  That’s why it runs in my blood.  This year on Earth day I had the idea to plant roses at the Dawoodi Bohras’ community center in Austin.  This will provide an amazing fragrance when people enter.  I also planted fruit trees for people to enjoy picking and eating.  We are building a new Mosque in Austin, so we kept some of the trees in pots so that we can move them to our new land eventually.  Most of all I just wanted to beautify our area to  make people happy vibe when they come visit us.”

Fatema Hirani, an 11th grade student in Austin, has a passion for sustainability… 

“Growing up, my mom always encouraged the idea that “a little goes a long way” and so being environmentally conscious naturally became very important to me.  She motivated me to want to increase awareness of environmental consciousness among our Austin community.  So about two years ago, I assembled a group of young people of the faith to produce and deliver a presentation to encourage our fellow Dawoodi Bohra community members to live more sustainable lives.  Since then, our Green Initiative has encouraged the Austin Dawoodi Bohras to become much more environmentally friendly, for example, by drastically reducing paper and plastic waste.

Dawoodi Bohras all over the world take action on a voluntary basis under the global Project Rise initiative to help protect and preserve the environment through tree-planting drives, coastal and river clean-ups, and seeking to eliminate single-use plastics from their community kitchen.  The Bohras of Austin look forward to undertaking more park clean-ups and tree plantings.