Green F & B at Zureli Green talks

Green Talks with F&B @ Sunway Iskandar  Talk starts at 14.50

Workshop and Classes at Edible Park

Free workshops and classes at Edible Park

Nature Class:  Every Friday Morning. Whilst enjoying the outdoors, collecting materials and investigating the natural world, kids are encouraged through science, art and crafts and creative play, to learn about and make important connections with nature. A regular Friday morning class at our Garden Studio for kids that is hands on and involves their exploration of our natural surroundings. Recommended ages: 4-10 Admission is free.

Sustainablity Sessions: Saturday mornings we hold a social and knowledge sharing session on topics that can provide skills and insights into living sustainability. We will bring many sustainable concepts into real life context like #zerowaste, #locavore, #slowfood #growyourownfood #chemicalfree

We will have facilitators that will help us revisit lost domestic skills, learn local and heritage wisdoms and guide us through more advanced ideas like fermentation, horticulture and soap making.

We combine this with plenty of information to help us understand the science and culture behind natural and alternative methods whilst also remembering that when we add fun, creativity and sociability we turn chores into the art of living.

Come indulge your curiosity and creativity, enhance your life skills and make some new friends! Suitable for adults of all ages and we have plenty of room for young kids to play and older ones can participate with parental supervision.

Check out full details on their events page

Workshops at Green Markets

We hold workshops at our Green Markets ( follow our events page to find out when they are) that promote local products, arts and crafts, gardening and more that promote sustainable lifestyles. Check out lists of our previous ones here.

Green Heritage Workshop at SMKIJ Convent

Students from SMKIJ Convent Johor Bahru, pictured above, participate in a 2 hour workshop exploring their relationship with the environment.

Using artwork and other material from our Green Heritage  initiative, we engaged these young people on the role of flora and fauna in our environment from the different viewpoints of art, science and culture with a focus on local flora.  We also describe the relevance of the natural world to industry and career choices like agriculture, biochemistry and the food/restaurant business. After the talk, students review materials like books, fabrics and plant cuttings and then work on articulating an idea of their own choice by drawing, painting or writing. We then had a feedback session on selected work to appreciate the strength of the idea, how well it was articulated and its creative merit.

This Green Heritage workshop is part of our Green Education initiative.

Our Landscape - Enrichment Class

Students from local kebangsaan schools, pictured above, participate in a weekend enrichment program called Anbum AaTharavum ( Love & Support ) - an outreach program for students from the Indian Malaysian community.

Cultivating Sustainability - at Sketch JB

Johor Green presented "Cultivating Sustainability" at Sketch JB, a platform for a monthly gathering of students, creatives and professionals intended to nurture a creative community. The talk described the challenge of seeding ideas about sustainability within our modern cultural context whilst exploring current global ideas about sustainability and comparing them to many traditional and local sustainable behaviours that are disappearing.

Our Landscape - Outdoor Class and Nature Walk

Students of CCEM Johor Bahru are pictured above participating in an outdoor class and nature walk hosted by Johor Green. Using material from our Green Heritage initiative, we got these youngsters to get up close with plants from 'Our Landscape" and to learn more about the roles they play in our ecosystem and to understand their significance from different viewpoints like art, science and culture.

This workshop intends to familiarize young people with their local environment and landscape by connecting them directly with those plants on a walking tour while providing extensive information about the background and interesting properties of each plant.

Our Landscape is part of our Green Education initiative.

Reliving Johor's Green heritage - New Straits Times

BOUNTIFUL NATURE: Students cultivate a relationship with the environment by getting to know local trees, plants, fruits and flowers by name

JOHORE BAHRU: JOHOR Green, a social enterprise with a concern for green issues in the state, recently engaged a group of 30 students from Sri Ara Private School  about our landscape.

Facilitator Chris Parry, who is Johor Green founder, said that our landscape defines our identity and challenged the students to think about Johor's green heritage.

Foreign students including Japanese, Australian, Indian, Pakistani and Malaysians gave interesting responses which are indicative of how urbanisation and modern consumerism has changed our perception of the landscape in our neighbourhood.

While the delicate rose is the pride of England, the Japanese treasure their cherry blossoms and even have festivals to celebrate them. When we think of the landscape in the Wild Wild West, thoughts of the desert, cactus and tumbleweed come to mind.

Cowboys are so inspired by their landscape that they composed songs about lonesome pines and the prairies.

Very often we are better acquainted with flora and fauna that we see in movies and hear from songs rather than those at our very doorstep.

In fact, many of our local plant species have been overshadowed by the more showy South American species like heliconias and bougainvillea.

Is it then not surprising to discover that our national flower, the hibiscus or bunga raya, is not native to Malaysia?

Parry, a former New York-based graphic artist, is a textile designer with a passion for botany and gardening.

Having lived abroad for many years, he has a special affinity for local flora and encouraged the students to cultivate a relationship with the environment by getting to know local trees, plants, fruits and flowers by name.

By illustrating that we respond more spontaneously to helping people we know by name rather than to strangers, he hoped that the students will get better acquainted with local botanical treasures and value our environment for future generations.

To create an awareness of the wealth of our green heritage, the students were introduced to a range of local plants, many of which are usually ignored on roadsides or uninvited into our gardens.

As Parry discussed with the students, a variety of twigs with leaves and flowers were passed around for the students to touch and smell.

He encouraged them to learn their common and scientific names, where they commonly grow, how they can be an inspiration for art and their cultural and heritage importance in our community.

A recent Johor Green initiative called Our Green Heritage is portrayed in original artworks that feature familiar Malaysian flora for sale as posters, notebooks and cards.

Some of these materials were used to interest the students in the local landscape and to show them how ordinary flora can inspire the composition and creation of stunning artwork.

"We plan to organise talks in local schools and promote the idea of knowing the names of our Malaysian flora, recognise the beauty and breath of our botanic diversity and also our rich history of local ethnobotanic traditions that use plants to make everything from food colouring to furniture," said Parry.

"We hope to spark an interest among the youth and let them be curious to find out more for themselves," he added.

When Parry demonstrated how blades of common lalang (Imperata cylindrica) can be turned into shooting arrows, the boys in particular, were fascinated at how this grass can also become a toy.

Lalang also provides important building material for birds like the Baya Weaver (Ploceus philippinus) that weave the long blades to make their hanging homes while the Olive-backed Sunbird (Nectrinia jugularis) uses the white, long, fine hairs of the lalang fruits to line their nests.

The discussion on ethnobotany or the understanding of what people do with plants in the cultural and traditional context held their rapt attention as students discovered how plants, leaves and flowers are also used in local recipes.

For instance, the vivid deep blue colour of the Blue Pea Flower (Clitoria ternatea) is used as a food dye in popular Peranakan food like nyonya kueh and nasi kerabu in Kelantan Malay food.

They also found out that kaffir lime or limau purut leaves are just as essential an ingredient in tom yam soup as slices of torch ginger flower or bunga kantan are in assam laksa.

There was also a question and answer session and finally, the students gave their views about what they learnt. It was interesting that the students could name at least one thing each because this shows that Johor Green has planted a seed of interest that would be nurtured in the youths as they begin to relate to the local landscape.

Johor Green aims to inform, inspire, connect and encourage people to take a social path to a greener Johor.

For more details on Johor Green and future events, visit www.johorgreen.com.

By Peggy Loh, in the New Straits Times: Reliving Johor's green heritage