Jess
Rooted in Noojee. Growing connection through nature, knowledge and nurture.
NNEST is a community‑driven initiative that creates a nature‑based learning hub on the old school grounds, offering forest trails, gardens, workshops, and sensory therapies to foster environmental education, creative skills, wellbeing, and intergenerational knowledge sharing, while inviting people to support and contribute through volunteering, sharing, or funding.
At first glance, the path seems to divide — but it's really one continuous trail. We're simply standing at the midpoint, where past and future meet beneath the trees.
That's where NNEST stands too. Between history and possibility, learning from the land to guide the way forward.
What NNEST is
NNEST — Nurture, Nature, Education & Sensory Therapies — is a people-led initiative to secure a dedicated place where everyone can learn with nature and from one another.
It's education in its broadest, richest form. Not just classrooms, but forest paths, garden beds, craft benches, microscopes, stories, and shared hands-on experience.
What we're creating
We're creating a home for lifelong learning — a space where history, science, creativity, wellbeing, and community care come together. That includes:
- Walking the forest trails, learning to read the landscape and its rhythms
- Observing, sketching, and photographing the natural world as a way to study and understand it
- Honouring Noojee's forestry heritage, and learning from the past to shape sustainable futures
- Gardening, growing, and land care — building skills in ecology, food systems, and environmental stewardship
- Crafting with natural materials — woodworking, clay work, weaving, and lapidary — applying practical, creative, and scientific knowledge
- Exploring natural sciences and the energetic patterns present in ecosystems, materials, and ourselves
- Learning nature-based therapeutic practices — forest therapy, horticultural therapy, sensory immersion — grounded in evidence and lived experience
- Sharing these skills and stories so they can be passed on to future generations
A simple belief at the heart of it
Everyone holds a piece of knowledge worth preserving.
From soil wisdom and forestry traditions to crafting, foraging, storytelling, and sensory understanding — these skills are part of Noojee's identity. If we don't protect and share them, we risk losing them.
What it could become
This grassroots effort aims to breathe new life into the old school grounds, transforming them into a living learning hub for:
- Environmental education
- Creative and practical skills
- Community wellbeing
- Sensory and experiential learning
- Intergenerational knowledge-sharing
- Respectful connection with the land
How you can help
💚 Like or comment to show support. 💚 Share this post with others who value nature, science, heritage, creativity, and community learning. 💚 Email us if you'd like to offer anything — knowledge, skills, time, energy, materials, funding, or simply encouragement.
Together, we can grow something beautiful. A place where curiosity, healing, and community take root, and learning truly grows wild. 🌿
Every layer matters
Every layer of an ecosystem matters, and every person does too.
Not everyone's a tall tree — some of us are mushrooms, and that's magic in its own way. Like a forest, our strength is in our diversity.
Shrubs give shelter, vines climb for light, fungi share nutrients underground, and roots intertwine to hold it all together. What looks like chaos is really connection. And together, we grow. 🌱