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​Join us for a conversation to discover how community leaders are using nature to bring people together, fostering social bonds and the kampung spirit, all while nurturing empathy and care for nature and our environment. Learn about how nature can be a powerful tool to cultivate a sense of community, and why empathy for community and nature are more crucial now than ever.
Cai Bingyu, Kampung Architect, Ground-Up Initiative​
Bingyu leads Ground-Up Initiative (GUI) with a dedicated community of everyday heroes. He works closely with volunteers, partners, and the land to shape spaces rooted in belonging, sustainability, and hands-on culture—believing that meaningful places are crafted not just from materials, but through people, stories, and shared purpose.
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Ground-Up Initiative (GUI) is a non-profit organisation in Singapore that connects people with the Earth, with one another, and with self. They do this through hands-on activities that rebuild our relationship with food, waste, nature, and the everyday things we depend on.
Their home, the Kampung Kampus, is an urban solution to rapid urbanisation — a living, breathing learning campus where communities come together to grow food, regenerate soil, explore green practices, and build a deeper sense of belonging to place and to one another.
For the past 17 years, GUI has continued to champion a ground-up spirit rooted in care, sustainability, and community. They believe that a meaningful, resilient future is built with people — learning, doing, and growing together.​
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Ganesh Kumar, Founder, Woodlands Botanical Gardens
Ganesh Kumar is a chemist by qualification but an avid gardener and nature enthusiast by passion. He started the Woodlands Botanical Garden (WBG) in 2020 as a tribute to his late mother and to bring the therapeutic and healing effects of a garden and gardening to the community. He has worked with numerous nature and mental health organisations since the garden started and has brought the joy and importance of biodiversity to the masses. In doing so he has taught us that we too can play a part in community building as well as safeguarding nature.
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Woodlands Botanical Gardens is a community garden started as a ground-up initiative in July 2020. Spanning more than 4,000 sqm on the Northern slope of Woodlands Town Park East, this 9-storey garden boosts an incredible biodiversity that brings joy to all nature lovers. Purposefully created to also address the importance of mental wellness, this garden strives to bring peace and tranquility to the mind and refreshment to the body and soul.
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Ties of the soil: Fostering community and nurturing connections through nature
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026
Time: 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Venue: Stranger's Conversation
Address: 195 Pearl's Hill Terrace #02-38D