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Mothers are the first teachers, and children often teach others the same lessons they learn from their beloved mothers. Abdul Rasheed learnt many things from his mother and chose to carefully offer his daughter Noora Zaineb nature lessons that he took from his mother, who was a herbal healer.

While keeping her memories intact, the father-daughter has so far planted 40,000 plus saplings in the vicinity of their home at Thamarassery in Kerala and in faraway lands across India and abroad.  The mission runs on with the duo eying on further expansion plans under the aegis of ‘Plants Our Passion' found in 2017 with Noora as vice coordinator and Abdul Rasheed as chief coordinator.  

In times of large scale felling of trees, the duo upholds the Prophet's saying “plant a seed, even if it’s your last deed”, while creating a community of people and plants.

“It all started from my grandmother’s herbal garden," says Noora Zaineb, a 15-year-old young environmentalist. People came with ailments, and Noora’s grandmother returned them with roots and leaves. Growing up seeing this, Abdul  Rasheed, once pharmacist and NRI returnee, decided to follow his mother’s trails. Together the father and daughter flagged their foundation.

Began as a preserver and promoter of herbal plants, they went on to establish 125 herbal gardens in the neighbourhood of Thamarassery in 2018. By 2109, the foundation branched out into vegetable gardening and had 1000 families under its umbrella. As of now, they had planted 42,000 saplings across climate and soils. And they aim to have 1 lakh living plants by this year. 

Noora as a kid, was not a great enthusiast at planting. But as she started planting with her father, she was awestruck seeing life stemming out of a seed. Noora has absorbed the love for plants from her father and faith, which taught to plant a seed even if it's your last deed and to rid wastage of water while washing for prayers even if from a flowing stream. She is also inspired by Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al- Nuaimi, member of the Ajman royal family, who is fondly called as Green Sheikh.

Noora and her father have made plants a part of their life. By gifting saplings on special occasions like marriages and birthdays, plants have become a part of their near and dear ones lives too.  For the father and daughter plants have become a path to many people. "Whenever we notice a good garden on our way we drop by to meet the householder and exchange plants," says Rasheed. 

Over the years, Plants Our Passion has conducted several workshops, launched eco clubs and organised meetups for plant lovers, which eventually earned them a good network of people who are eager to plant. 

"We get calls from people whom we have never met," says Noora. Once a law institute from Bangalore reached out to them for plants. Another time it was a school from Kashmir, and her seeds have crossed seas to Germany, when Dr Goottfried Thomas, a German scholar, visited Noora’s school and took interest in her work.

The uniqueness of the foundation is their follow up. “We make sure to track the growth of the plant. People update us, and if the plant is not growing well, we send them new seeds and encourage them to take care of it," Noora says. 

It was in 2018 that a neem tree was planted in Medina, just 200 meters away from the Rawda, the resting place of Prophet Muhammed. “I heard it has grown as tall as one. Our neighbourhood Usthad is going for Umrah after three months. We have asked him to check on the tree," says Rasheed. 

While Noora has made afforestation a way of her life, she makes her life exemplary by eliminating plastic to the possible and promoting people to lead an ecologically responsible life. 

In 2019, young Noora was seen holding Greta Thunberg’s image at the school parliament in the Kerala Legislative Assembly hall, where she represented herself as the Environment Minister. Referring to the rainforest depletion globally she said, “In the name of devastating mindless development, we are depleting the greenery of our planet Earth. We have an assembly line of leaders with a blinkered vision who do next to nothing compared to young gritty girl Greta Thunberg."

Noora has raised awareness against Environmental Impact Assessment 2020 and was recently seen requesting people to have mindful celebrations with minimal pollution. 

Plants Our Passion has also collected rare plants from the centuries-old Thali temple in Kozhikode, and it has brought people beyond languages and religion under its shade. 

"The Banyan tree planted in Andhra Pradesh, has stretched it to six meters," says Noora, who dreams of creating a world where the environment would not need protection.