Nirasha “Niri” Kumar is in it for the right reasons. As Natick and Framingham’s Energy Advocate, she conducts outreach to underserved communities to help the environment in an equitable way. In promoting utility collaborative Mass Save’s services, she is building trust and connections among communities that so often do not get that opportunity.
Natick and Framingham’s Energy Advocate position was created this year, and Kumar is the first person to hold it. The position is funded by the Community First Partnership grant, and was created out of the realization that some communities were not getting served. As the Energy Advocate, Kumar ensures that Mass Save’s programs are being implemented well and equally, especially by involving underserved communities. In other words, the goal of the Energy Advocate position is environmental justice.
Mass Save’s goal is to move towards clean energy by making homes more energy efficient because, as Kumar said, “At the end of the day, most of the energy that we’re burning up comes from your home.” However, certain communities, such as people of color, immigrants, and low-income families, go underrepresented as the collaborative makes its policies and plans. That’s where Kumar comes in.
The year prior to getting the job as Energy Advocate, Kumar began to learn the lessons and skills she would need for the position by working as Natick’s Community Liaison for Climate Equity. In that role, she learned a lot about how to reach and work with a variety of communities. For instance, she discovered that the language barrier, differing economic levels, and the lack of free time that stems from working multiple jobs, among other reasons, make it difficult for members of underrepresented communities to be involved in clean energy work.
Kumar has also learned from her own experience as a person of color and an immigrant. She is working for environmental justice, not just clean energy because, “I understand what it’s like to be on the other side, and I understand what the fears are, because I share a lot of those fears. I understand the dignity of actually getting help…So I think that the empathy, and the perspective, while a lot of people may do it, hit differently when you were a person on the other side.” This empathy helps her strike a balance of not hijacking other cultures’ events, not being a barrier to picking up necessary food (when she attends food banks), not appearing as a scary authority figure, and not taking advantage of people in a vulnerable state.
These experiences help Kumar figure out the best ways to conduct outreach to underrepresented communities, which she does in a variety of ways. For instance, just having a booth at the farmer’s market would mean she’s only reaching a certain demographic, so she also goes to cultural festivals, childcare at the YMCA, the library, and food banks, among other places. At the food banks, Kumar talks to people about ways for them to reduce what they pay for energy as well as how to make their energy usage more environmentally-friendly. For example, people who qualify for food stamps can pay less by getting fuel assistance.
Another of Kumar’s strategies is reaching out to community leaders, as communities tend to trust these people more than unknown authority figures.
In addition, Kumar tries to make the information she conveys as accessible as possible, even across language barriers. To this end, she launched a program in which she brings a dollhouse with labels in many languages to events to give people a visual about how Mass Save’s programs would affect their home. This helps visual learners and works to engage young children in environmental activism, as well as bridging language barriers.
Kumar believes that the most important thing Natick can do for the environment is to focus on environmental justice, just like she’s been doing. The people who are impacted the most by climate change—the ones working outside in the heat, living without access to temperature-controlled areas—are the ones with the fewest seats at the table. Kumar said that we can talk all we want about clean energy, but we live on one Earth where we all impact each other, so we need to make sure that everyone’s addressed.
Kumar wants the people of Natick to know that if there’s anything she can do to demystify clean energy for them, represent them, or help in any way, she’s here as a community member to support them. She can be reached at NKumar@framinghamMA.gov.
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