Belief: Culture of care grows through everyday practice
Many people care about the environment, but it can be difficult to know where to begin — or how to make that care part of everyday life.
At Food Citizen, we create opportunities for people to learn about, experience, and care for the living world through practical activities and shared experiences.
We believe that care grows through experience and practice. It deepens when people have opportunities to return, learn alongside others, and take part in caring for places over time.
Exploring neighbourhoods, making compost, tending to shared gardens, saving seeds, preparing meals - these activities may seem small. Each offers a way to understand the living world that sustains us, develop practical skills, and build relationships with the people and places around us.
Heritage, nature, and community walk.
(Photo credit: Jane's Walk Singapore)
Examples of our programs
Origin: How Food Citizen came about
Food Citizen is an education-focused micro-enterprise that emerged from an informal network co-founded by Cuifen Pui.
Since 2013, Cuifen has been bringing people together around shared interests in food, edible gardens and community action. She started by engaging her own neighbours and fellow community gardeners. Those early connections gradually grew into an informal network of people curious about Singapore's food landscape and interested in exploring what a better local food system could look like.
Through the experimental initiatives that followed, the network's understanding of a better food system evolved towards one that is fairer, more circular, and regenerative.
In 2019, Cuifen registered Food Citizen Pte Ltd as an education-focused micro-enterprise. This was in response to enquiries from government agencies and schools seeking curated learning programmes and opportunities to learn about our food system from practitioners. Cuifen partnered with invited peers to weave their knowledge and experiences into engaging workshops tailored to meet the needs of schools and other organisations.
Today, Food Citizen continues to evolve through the people it works alongside. What began as an experiment is shaping into a platform for collaboration, curation of learning experiences and creation of new products, as we continue to explore how our everyday actions and choices shape our living world.
A community potluck hosted by Vinisha in 2017 for regulars of the informal network's activities
Questions we found ourselves asking back in Jan 2018 at a NTU CCA event
Chun Yeow teaching an eco enzyme class as part of a semester-long programme curated by Food Citizen.
Practice: People, relationships, and shared learning
Food Citizen is coordinated by a lean team made possible with our invited practitioners, volunteers, and collaborating organisations.
Cuifen Pui — Initiator and Co-creator
Cuifen's work brings together food, place, practical learning, and stewardship. She is interested in how people develop deeper relationships with the places they inhabit and the food they grow, prepare, share, and redistribute.
Before registering Food Citizen, she spent 16 years working as an environmental scientist, with experience in environmental surveys, impact assessments, and mapping. Her passion for connecting with people who actively care for others and nature through food and community initiatives has shaped her interest in how people connect with and care for the places they live in. Through Food Citizen, she curates programmes that bring people together to learn, experiment, and practise care for our living world.
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Cuifen facilitating a demonstration with the use of flour and bread.
Some of our practitioners
Our Wider Network
Alongside Cuifen, a wider network of practitioners contributes knowledge, experience, and creativity that shape Food Citizen's work. The network includes compost makers, gardeners, chefs, home cooks, educators, researchers, artists, social workers, and community builders. Each person brings something different, and the work continues to grow through these relationships.
Together, we create opportunities for people to deepen their relationships with the living world around them, make space for observation and reflection, and develop practices they can carry into their own lives.
Amaani and Mindy reading at 'Top 10 weirdest critters of Singapore's rainforest', a book of poems penned by Amaani and illustrated by local illustrator, Clarice. Both are volunteers of Cicada Tree Eco Place. The storytime session was organised with the support of Jurong Library.
Vision: Collaborative, regenerative neighbourhoods
As a micro social enterprise, the surplus we generate from paid programmes is reinvested into developing educational resources, stewarding community-based projects, and supporting selected causes that align with our mission.
We are working towards a vision of helping to shape collaborative, regenerative neighbourhoods. We are exploring how immersive hands-on experiences, and collaboration can help make this vision a reality.
At the end of the day, we hope to see more places where people and nature can flourish together.
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Schools where caring for the living world is part of everyday learning.
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Neighbourhood spaces where people have opportunities to grow food, make compost and care for shared environments.
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Communities where people can learn from one another and contribute their skills.
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Meaningful work that enables people to sustain their involvement in stewardship.
Care grows when we have opportunities to practise it — with people we know and care for, and in the places we call home.
Community composting program at a private school, with interested members of public joining in
Practitioners engaging with interested residents at a community event
Pancakes as a way to explore alternative grains: Foo Peiying shared her journey that led to experimenting with wheat alternatives. Everyone had the opportunity to taste pancakes made from different grains.