E&O STRAITS QUAY THINK GREEN FOOD GARDEN

2013 - 2021

Think Green is a food garden located within the 4-acre Straits Green Park By The Sea, part of E&O Berhad’s Seri Tanjung Pinang residential enclave in Penang. The food garden was designed to engage the local community and schools, E&O employees, and partners, build a strong sense of community and spirit of volunteerism, and teach all stakeholders about earth care practices.

Initiated in June 2013, under the social pillar of E&O’s Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) programming, the garden was an active outdoor classroom until mid-2021. Over these 8 years the Think Green food garden was the hub of various interactive eco-centric activities. Each one connected the community to nature and taught them the importance of sustaining local ecosystems, growing nutritious food, and building healthy soils through composting.

Cultivate Central designed the urban food garden and created the food garden engagement framework for community outreach and collaboration. Along with a close partnership with local NGO, Consumer Association Penang (CAP), we co-created the sustainability themed lesson plans which enabled students on their eco-learning journey.

The garden was built and maintained with the help of the local community, CAP’s natural farming unit, schools, volunteers, and E&O staff. With local partnerships and expertise we managed to ensure sustained and relevant workshops, events, and outreach that resonated with the community and schools. 

If you’re looking to develop a meaningful eco-centric community engagement programme for your employees or local community centered around a food garden or commons where collaboration, permaculture, community learning and sustained engagement and action are outcomes, do get in touch with us.

How it came to be…

At the beginning of 2013, E&O Berhad was looking for ideas for a green community engagement initiative at its latest development, The Straits Quay. We were just beginning our journey here at Cultivate Central but we knew it was an opportunity we could not pass up. We wanted to demonstrate the power of permaculture in bringing together communities and developing sustainable eco-friendly habits in an urban environment.

So, with fingers crossed, Nova proposed the idea of educating the community and school students about the environment through a food garden and composting sites. Luckily, the community relations team at E&O shared her vision and passion, and loved the idea. So began the work. Designing, planning, and building the food garden. Brainstorming and creating lesson plans for the educational programmes. Sourcing materials (and worms!) for the compost sites. Finding the right community partners to support outreach and engagement. And of course booking flights to Penang!

The project began as a humble food garden build with some pilot workshops for children from three schools in the neighbourhood. But with the enthusiastic feedback from students, teachers, headmasters, and parents it evolved into a long-term community engagement with six schools and a programme that spanned 8 years.

Education and Engagement

Using permaculture principles, Cultivate Central created frameworks for hands-on workshops and activities at the food garden to teach students gardening skills, develop other soft skills, and evoke and indulge their innate curiosity and appreciation about the natural world.

Students were encouraged to observe, ask questions, and to draw and document their findings at the garden. They were taught about seed saving, planting, growing, and harvesting healthy foods through art and DIY activities, composting, and cooking. They built their confidence and public speaking skills by teaching others what they had learned at pop-up booths at local green events.

Each year saw the programmes evolving as we learned what worked, and what didn’t. We were encouraged by what worked and built on this knowledge for the following year’s workshops and activities.

For example, we learned that most students see soil as lifeless and full of dirt. So, along with the composting workshops we introduced the study of soil and worms. This opened up a whole new world of knowledge and curiosity for them. At first, students were hesitant to touch the soil and earthworms but as they learned more about them, saw through magnifying glasses how soil is alive with a myriad of other microorganisms, and understood that this is what makes our food healthy, they became more comfortable interacting with soil, compost, and the worms.

Educators witnessed first-hand how a food garden can spark curiosity and drive in their students and bring communities together. Schools reported higher attendance rates for those involved in the programme, educators saw students bringing their confidence and knowledge from the garden into the classrooms, and headmasters reported that parents were eager to get involved with various projects at the food garden.

Of course, along the way students were taught about the importance of earth care and environmentally sound practices. We were delighted to hear this from an educator at one of the schools, “Once in a while as a test, I’ll bring out a chemical based fertiliser and without fail I’ll be questioned and reminded by students about the organic alternatives for the garden. So I am very proud of how aware they’ve become and how vocal they are about looking after the environment.”

As the food garden was a space open to the public it also drew in community members who would do a little bit of gardening, come by to harvest some vegetables, or bring their children to explore the flora and fauna the garden had to offer.

Over the years, as students learned more about the earth care through their food gardens, activities were also held to expose them to the larger ecological issues facing Penang. In 2016, for example, they learned about the importance of mangrove forest ecosystems followed by several sessions of mangrove tree planting with other members of the community.

If you’re curious about some of the activities and successes of the program, download this booklet on E&O’s Think Green initiative.

Collaboration with local natural farming experts

We couldn’t have executed the Think Green food garden and activities without our local partner, the Consumer’s Association of Penang (CAP). Cultivate Central laid the groundwork for the project but with the technical expertise and on-the-ground presence of the natural farming experts from CAP, Think Green was able to take and use our frameworks to sustain these eco-conscious programmes over the years.

Additionally, CAP lent their expertise to train and educate landscapers and gardeners working at Straits Green public park on organic composting and fertilising methods to ensure natural practices onsite. Thanks to this, the two Think Green composting sites set up by Cultivate Central have diverted over 3 tonnes of landscape waste away from landfills. The compost is used to grow herbs and vegetables as well as landscape plants at Straits Green.

Elements in the garden

It was an ever evolving garden, but some of the key features in the Think Green garden included:

• Keyhole mulch bed
• Composting station
• Perennial food patches
• Raised vegetable beds

Do you have a dormant space you’d like to transform into an abundant and productive food space? Or do you have a community you’d like to build a Permaculture Garden for? Tell us more about your space and objectives by filling out the form below. 

E&O Think Green Food Garden in numbers

Location	Straits Green Park By The Sea, Straits Quay, Tanjong Tokong, Penang
Size of area planted	Content Here
Soil condition/b>	Content Here
Composting systems onsite	3
Total community members engaged
Schools engaged	6
Schools engaged	6
Students educated	5400
School food gardens built offsite	3
Secondary herb garden offsite	1
Secondary compost sites offsite	1
Mangrove trees planted offsite	Over 1,500

Site Plan