069: Learning Rooted in Belonging with Anita Chowdhury
What changes when learning begins from a place of belonging and connection?
In this episode of The People Teaching People Podcast, I sit down with Anita Chowdhury – an educator, researcher, and community leader whose work invites a more relational and compassionate approach to teaching and learning. Anita brings together social justice, arts integration, land-based learning, and engaged pedagogy in ways that honour sustainability, relationality, and care.
Our conversation explores how early experiences and relationships shape the way we learn, how community can become a powerful teacher, and why compassion and belonging matter so deeply in the spaces where learning happens. Anita reflects on hope, land, identity, and the small everyday moments that remind us what it means to support one another as humans and learners. It also invites us to notice the learning already happening all around us.
Listen in as we talk about:
01:00 Anita’s story
03:02 Roots in land and learning
08:08 Community learning in practice
13:15 Education as liberation
16:12 Land-based learning
18:08 Compassion at the heart of learning
23:54 Empowerment through Mamas for Mamas
27:26 Strength through support
31:23 Hope in everyday moments
33:25 A teacher’s lasting impact
36:29 Proud moments in learning
37:37 Curiosity for what’s next
39:36 Learning everywhere around us
Connect with Anita:
- LinkedIn: Anita Chowdhury
- Websites:
- Mamas for Mamas Calgary: https://www.mamasformamas.org/calgary/
- Soil Camp: https://soilcamp.ca/
- Instagram: @mamasformamas.calgary
- Facebook: @mamasformamascalgary
Connect with Tiana:
- Website: https://tianafech.com
- LinkedIn: Tiana Fech
- Instagram: @tianafech
- Facebook: @tianafech
- Book: Online Course Creation 101: A step-by-step guide to creating your first online course
Anita shares that her story begins in British Columbia, where the eco-conscious culture and time spent in her family’s community garden became her first understanding of healing, connection, and caring for the land. These threads now run through her work in land-based learning and community food initiatives. As her life unfolded, she followed her curiosity and opportunities across the country, teaching art history at Mount Royal, training as an elementary educator in Toronto, and navigating the beautiful complexity of raising children while pursuing meaningful work. Through moves to Ottawa, Toronto, and back again, she discovered that each place offered something different,
