Rhiane Fatinikun
Black Girls Hike
The outdoors should be a space for anyone. But in 2019, the lack of diversity inspired Rhiane Fatinikun to start a movement called Black Girls Hike, to encourage black women to feel more comfortable in the natural world. Since the group began, the community has grown to welcome women from across the North West, Midlands and London and looks to expand further in the future. In this article she talks of inclusivity, authenticity and tokenism in the outdoor domain.
COULD YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOU AND HOW BLACK GIRLS HIKE CAME TO BE?
So, I’m from Manchester and before I started the group I just used to work in an office. I worked for the civil service for a few years, I was also a union rep, but I’ve always been involved in quite a lot of activism. Creating safe spaces and only really entering safe spaces is something I’ve always been really conscious about.
When I decided that I wanted to take up hiking it just seemed like the natural progression for it to create a safe space for black women. I know that they’re not catered for in the outdoor domain, just because it’s so white middle-class and male. I think, as you grow up coming from certain communities, you don’t really have that much exposure to the outdoors. That was basically the foundations of Black Girls Hike, just to create a safe space where women who have no experience of the outdoors can come together free from judgment. It can then give women the confidence to enter other spaces as well.
What we’re trying to do is give everyone an introduction to the outdoors. We’ve started trying out some other things now, like caving and climbing. We’re working on getting leaders trained up too, as obviously the outdoor domain is very white, middle class and male - so are the instructors. We’d like to increase representation in all aspects of the outdoors.
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE BGH COMMUNITY?
It was quite natural really. I was on the train going through the Peak District at the beginning of 2019 and just had this thought, like ‘I’m going to have a new year’s resolution to do something better with my time’. I was watching all these people getting on and off the train and decided I was going to take up hiking. So, I set up an Instagram group without any idea who, or if anyone, would be interested in it. It was crazy, we had loads of interest.
I think it was mainly people who had wanted to go out for a while but had never really had the outlet to do it. Then there were a lot of people who had been hiking by themselves but wanted to go with a group. So, it wasn’t actually that difficult to get people coming on the walks. On our first walk we had 14 people!
Now we get a broad range of ages and experience, but when we’re together it’s a level playing field. I really like the fact that we get such a variety because when you’re walking and talking, I think you learn so much from each other. Often people don’t even realise their own wisdom, which is really nice. Speed doesn’t matter, you’d never get left behind. We don’t want anyone to have a bad experience, it’s just a leisurely thing.
SO, YOU STARTED WITH THE GROUP IN MANCHESTER, BUT BGH IS STILL GROWING RIGHT?
We initially started the group in Manchester, then branched out to the Midlands late 2019 and London in 2020. We have demand from all over the country but its hard to find people to lead. The goal is to have groups everywhere. We’ve had over a hundred people turn up. It was really emotional actually, I remember walking out of the tube station and seeing all these people. I just couldn’t believe they had all come to walk, but I felt really proud that I’d been able to create a safe space that my community needed.
DO YOU THINK THERE IS A WAY FOR MORE PEOPLE TO HELP DIVERSIFY THE OUTDOORS, OR CAN YOU SEE ANY IMPROVEMENTS SO FAR?
We have such a long way to go, we need more meaningful and sustained approaches to increase participation in under-represented communities. During Black Lives Matter we had so much interest from brands and organisations claiming they wanted to change the culture of their organisations. However, this has fizzled out drastically, and a lot of the actions were unfortunately just performative and not sustained. The leadership of these organisations is overwhelmingly white and middle class, they wonder why they can’t connect with underrepresented communities, but do any of them understand their needs? Why didn’t they care before?
Now we’ve had this big push on equality, diversity and inclusion and we’re supposed to trust people who have been blissfully unaware to the complex issues we face, to tackle them. Does that fill you with much confidence? The system isn’t broken, it was designed this way, and these organisations have been consciously and unconsciously upholding this system. The movement seems to have been lost momentum now, Black Lives Matter doesn’t trend anymore, people seemed to have moved on, but we need to continue this discourse.
WHERE IS YOUR FAVOURITE AREA TO WALK?
I really like the Lake District. I feel like I haven’t explored it enough, even though it’s only really an hour away from me. I only started going in 2019 when I started hiking. It is just so beautiful, everywhere you turn around could be a picture on a postcard. It really excites me because there is so much more to discover. That’s one of the things about adventure, it’s endless. Opportunities to discover are endless.
RHIANE FATINIKUN IS THE FOUNDER OF BLACK GIRLS HIKE, YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS NOT-FOR-PROFIT GROUP HERE.
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