SEKEM‘s Journal for Culture, Economy, Society and Ecology in Egypt

InsightNr. 120 - September 2012

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 1

Dear Readers,

There‘s a lot going on in the area of education at SEKEM this month. Not only is the opening of the Heliopolis University draw-ing near. The SEKEM School has also recently been selected a model school. As part of the EU-funded EduCamp project, schools are being equipped with modern teaching materials, and teachers trained in modern instructional methods. Read more about this in our opening article.

Thanks to the energetic support of SEKEM’s Swiss support asso-ciation, there is now a large piece of cargo headed for the port of Alexandria, destined for the initi-ative’s Vocational Training Centre. A carpenter has left the Swiss SEKEM friends a complete but unneeded carpentry workshop at an inexpensive price. Through the great personal efforts of the Swiss association’s members, about whom we tell you more in this month’s “Impressions from SEKEM”, the equipment could recently be packed into a large container which was then sent on its way to Egypt. We will tell and show you more about the amazing journey of this fantastic addition to SEKEM’s educational resources in the coming issue.

T he idea behind the EduCamp project, in which the SEKEM

Foundation for Development is par-ticipating and which is co-funded by the European Commission, is about improving educational quality at Egyptian state schools specifically at grades five to nine. At many pub-lic schools in the country, up to 60 pupils are still huddled together in a single classroom. The quality of care

that can be provided to them naturally leaves much to be desired, and teach-ing methods are frequently limited to frontal classroom instruction and heavy use of the textbook. Additional materials or alternative instructional approaches are hardly ever used.

To improve this situation, SEKEM has decided to contribute to the EduCamp project. Based on the national curric-ulum, a team of international experts

Editorial

Your Team of Editors

SEKEM School Recognised As EduCamp-Model Institution

Since 2010, the Heliopolis University and the RCE, which is administered by the SEKEM Development Foundation, have been involved in the EduCamp project. Within the project, the SEKEM School has now been declared a “Model School”.

SEKEM SchoolInstitution Recognized as “Model School”

AssociationsHow They Support the University

Vocational TrainingCarpentry Workshop En Route to SEKEM

Find SEKEM also on the Internet at:

A teacher at the SEKEM School participates in the EduCamp project with his children.

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 2

has developed a collection of 270 hands-on classroom activities and guidelines for their application in the whole of the project. The activities focus on the themes of water, energy, agriculture, and biodiversity. SEKEM through the Heliopolis University has contributed about 40 activities directly related to agriculture. The activities consist of practical exper-iments, discussions, field trips, and games that can be employed in the course of teaching without much effort or material cost, and thus quickly and easily enrich teaching practice in an active and engaging fashion.

Spreading High-Quality Teaching Material

To spread the new teaching mate-rial as far and wide as possible, seven Egyptian universities are also taking part in the creation of so-called teacher training centres. Here, teachers will be trained to meaningfully integrate the educational materials developed in the project and elsewhere into their individual curricula. One centre will be installed at the Heliopolis University. Its employees, who will later be work-ing at the centres, will first be trained in their own training programme. The most recent training session on agri-culture was carried out from 2 to 7 September in Portugal. Three teachers from the SEKEM School and one from

the Heliopolis University participated in the event.

In preparation for the training, 23 students of grades 5 and 6 have recently taken part in the activity

“East? West? Home is best!”. This activ-ity is a great example of how, through play, complex information like the ben-efits of preferring domestic products over imported ones, can be conveyed to children. Firstly, all the individual stations a product - in our case, an apple - travels on its way from the pro-ducer to the consumer, are listed. The apple then literally “travels” through the hands of children that have been painted with watercolours before, turning the apple more and more “col-ourful” on his journey. “Through such activities, we can show to the pupils the importance of the ecological bal-ance of food transports. They under-stand why imported products are more expensive. Understandably, no one eventually wants the ‘dirty’ apple”, explains Bianca Fliss, who coordinates the project for SEKEM, with a laugh.

In preparation for the next session, more activities will be tested in prac-tice. The feedback will then be inte-grated into the next training’s plan.

Bianca Fliss

Economy

More information:http://www.die-bessere-agrarpolitik.de!

„ Farmers are designers and bene-ficiaries of natural ecosystems“,

says Stephan Illi, member of Demeter’s Board. „As such, they bear special responsibilities. They also have to shoulder great costs, for instance, if they take care of issues of environ-mental conservation or practice social farming.“ When a farmer reduces the intensity of the agriculture he or she practices, but in turn improves care for biodiversity or introduces children to the benefits of healthy eating, he will hardly be rewarded for this change in course. On the contrary: „Its usu-ally the society or even future genera-tions who pay for the consequences of industrialised agriculture, e.g. through extra biodiversity protection. This gives industry-scale farms an unfair competitive advantage.

In order to change this, an alliance of 32 German associations - including Demeter - demands a reversal of the EU‘s current agricultural policy: it has to be „socially acceptable“, the title of a recently published booklet says, that comments in detail on the propos-als by the EU Commission for agrarian reform set to be implemented in 2014. The group not only demands to only spend „public money on public ser-vices“, e.g. by expanding direct pay-ments to only „green“ measures. They also demand better compatibility of EU policies with agricultural practice in the developing world.

Ultimately, organic farming should also be supported better, says Illi, for agriculture as such must become „more environmentally friendly, fairer, and more friendly to the development of bees, if it is supposed to continue to ensure our food supply and preserve our environmental integrity. Here, organic farmers such as ours do exem-plary work.”

Renee Herrnkind, Demeter

Demeter: EU Needs to Strengthen Agriculture, Safeguard Common Goods

More information:http://www.educamp.edu!

Children realise the importance of the ecological balance of food transports through play.

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 3

Economy

A s the first company in Egypt, SEKEM’s ISIS has just made avail-

able a new electronic service on its Internet site that allows customers to get to know the products they buy in much greater detail than before. Through the service, they can learn about the farms from which the raw materials come, the production cycle and the production date, its nutrient contents, and plenty of other details on the final processed product. The new tool aims to establish comprehen-sive product transparency.

Comprehensive Product Transparency

“We wanted to create a much more transparent product and give cus-tomers the opportunity to learn much more about the articles they purchase and their production process without much effort,” says Thomas Abouleish, head of the new media, e-marketing and customer service at ISIS.

To make this service as simple as possible for the customer, any cli-ent can either directly access the tool through a regular web browser on the website www.isisorganic.com/trace, or scan a code on an eligible product using his mobile phone. On the ISIS website, the client can then obtain data on the product by entering its lot number into a form provided.

“We asked ourselves what we would like to know about the food we pur-chase before and quickly arrived at our vision of complete transparency

throughout the entire production pro-cess of an article. Furthermore, it was very important to us that this ser-vice does not only improve transpar-ency and availability of factual data, but also that the service is easy to use for the end customer while still eventually providing a wealth of data on the 200 products manufactured by ISIS, the more than 1.500 ingredi-ents the company uses in producing them, and the over 600 farms sup-ply it with the required raw materi-als!”, adds Abouleish. “Achieving this would not have been possible with-out a strong team, which implemented the idea with practical knowledge and experience.”

Development of the New Tool by SEKEM Employees

The entire development was car-ried out by a team of SEKEM and ISIS employees. The tool will now be con-tinuously improved upon in order to make it even easier to use and provide more information. Firstly, dairy and date products were entered into the database. Within a few months, nearly all of the 200 ISIS products will follow.

„We are far from finished with what we have achieved so far. But we are happy that we took this step and can now claim to be the first on the Egypt mar-ket”, Abouleish points out.

Thomas Abouleish

SEKEM‘s ISIS First in Egypt to Launch Product Tracing Tool

More information:http://www.isisorganic.com/trace!

More information:http://http://www.demeter.de/Verbraucher/aktuell/demeter-marketingtagung-mit-zukunftsimpulsen-spannenden-themen-und-hochkarätigen-referenten

!

T he 3rd Demeter Marketing Conference will soon focus on the

issue „What will carry Demeter into the future“ by bringing together inspir-ing speakers, exciting discussions, and opportunities to exchange ideas and to network. The event takes place on 24 and 25 October in Darmstadt (Germany). Applications have to be made through Demeter. A majority of the products produced by SEKEM are Demeter-certified.

After the opening by the author Sebas tian Gronbach, the first dis-cussion will focus on the topic of generational change in the organic industry. The entrepreneur Florian Junge (Jungebad), the Demeter farmer Thomas Schmid of Heggelbachhof, biography consultant Walter Seyffer and organic pioneer Hilde Fauland Weckmann (Berlin), Lukas Nossol of wholesaler dennree, and Pascal Stolecki of Naturkost Schwarz, a Demeter Active Partner, will allow insights into processes of change. On Thursday, keynote lectures and dis-cussions on „Demeter 2.0“ will dis-cuss the future of communication with Christoph Harrach (KarmaKonsum), Jens Heis ter kamp (info3 and wir), Franz Berno Breitruck (attempto GmbH and www.bio123.de). A talk with Theo Gutberlet (tegut ... Gutberlet Stiftung & Co.), Achim Wagner and Ronald Harter (Biomammut GmbH), Sascha Dama Shun (Bodan GmbH), Martin Hollerbach (Dottenfelderhof), Klaus Fickert (Edeka Southwest GmbH) will concentrate on topics related to trade. Futurist Anja Kirig will then address the audience on the question „How will you eat in the future?“. She will also talk about the future of customer groups, their perspectives on life, and their purchasing behaviour.

Renée Herrnkind

Demeter Conference on Marketing Aims to Reconsider Practice

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 4

T his coming October, the Heliopolis University will commence its ser-

vice on the existing premises of the established Heliopolis Academy for Sustainability and the SEKEM head-quarters. The new institution will initially offer courses to about 200 students.

Focus on the „Core Programme“

The programme for fundamental studies (“Core Programme”) will form the heart of all specialised degree pro-grams and will thus take up a concept of study already popular at medie-val European universities: the idea to emphasize individual human devel-opment through a broad, cross-sec-tional study programme that caters to human development needs beyond the goals of any specialised thematic curriculum.

The cost of developing and imple-menting such a programme at the

Heliopolis University will total at around 670,000 euros. SEKEM’s European support associations intend to contribute financially to the great-est possible extent.

A Partnership with the GLS Bank

SEKEM and its associations are sup-ported in their efforts by the German GLS Bank, the first sustainable bank in the country. The discussions with the financial institution have already progressed to an extent that an appli-cation for funding can be made in two steps. The German SEKEM friends have already made the first of the two: they took out a loan of 300.000 euro from the GLS Bank to be earmarked by the Heliopolis University for imme-diate use in the development of the

Core Programme. The German associ-ation will repay the loan from the cur-rent and future donations it receives. Simultaneously, the group will collect credit guarantees of up to 3.000 euro each in order to secure this loan. The guarantees could be claimed by the GLS Bank only in case the German SEKEM friends become insolvent.

Fundraising Campaign

The second step then is a fundraising campaign that is going to be started in autumn with participation by all European SEKEM support associa-tions. This campaign will address indi-viduals enthusiastic about SEKEM’s development projects. They should be willing to donate, over five years, a small monthly sum of, for example, 30 euros up to a total of 1.800 euro (= 60 x 30). If such a commitment can be guar-anteed by the associations, the GLS Bank will then make these 1.800 euro available immediately to SEKEM. The German SEKEM friends have agreed to cover the interest rate of 2.9%.

For the members of the Austrian Association, no additional bureau-cracy is involved. The association will arrange for the transfer of all funds with both their German friends and the GLS Bank. This will also ensure that all Austrian donations are tax deductible. Plus, the Austrian association has also resolved to raise 50.000 to 100.000 euro itself. It therefore asks the read-ers of SEKEM Insight and all support-ers of SEKEM to consider participation in the fundraiser and to promote the campaign among their own friends and colleagues.

Hermann Becke

Hermann Becke is a member of SEKEM friends of Austria supporting SEKEM’s social projects.

How Private SEKEM Associations Support the University Project

In May 2012 at the annual SEKEM Day, the European SEKEM support associations had agreed that they would financially support the Heliopolis University. Hermann Becke (Austria) outlines the plan.

Culture

You can visit SEKEM yourself:www.SEKEM-reisen.de www.aventerra.de

The Heliopolis University strives to draw to Cairo students from all cultural regions of the world.

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 5

Impressions from SEKEM

J ust these days the Swiss SEKEM support association has sent a particularly heavy cargo on its way to Egypt: a complete carpentry workshop that a well-meaning carpenter has given to the SEKEM friends far below its actual monetary value. SEKEM’s Vocational Training Centre will be the main beneficiary

of the equipment. With this valuable extension to its material educational resources, the newly equipped workshop will allow to significantly improve the quality of vocational training. It will also improve the produc-tion capacity of the training workshop. In this context, the Swiss association is in negotiations with the Cairo office of the Swiss SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) with a view to co-funding even fur-ther development. A technician shall be hired to provide better training of apprentices supervisors. The Swiss patrons are still looking for donors to support this measure. They have already contributed some of their own funds and aim to raise another 8.000 francs.

Impressions

SEKEM Insight | September 2012 | Page 6

SEKEM and the team of SEKEM Europe GmbH are pleased to announce the popular “Sonnenfrucht” spreads will be available again in stores begin-ning mid-September. The products will be presented to the professional pub-lic at trade shows BioNord and BioSüd in Hanover and Augsburg before.

The first production run, which is now carried out by SEKEM’s German manufacturing partners Petersilchen GmbH, has just been completed and the SEKEM Europe team is excited about the results. Plus, the highly pop-ular fruit spreads with an oriental taste will also be available in additional vari-eties bringing the total number of vari-eties available to 8: bitter orange, fig, fig and pomegranate (new), fig mango (new), pomegranate, guava, lime (new) and mango.

Visitors may catch an early glimpse on the new products at the two upcom-ing organic fairs at SEKEM’s boot in the Demeter area at the stands No. 4-J09a (BioNord in Hanover) and stand No. 5-A25 (BioSüd in Augsburg).

Source: SEKEM Europe

SEKEM Sonnenfrucht Spreads are Back

Berlin‘s Denkwerk Zukunft Invites to Annual Conference

News in Brief

Masthead:The editors of SEKEM Insight wish to thank all contributors to this issue.

Editor:Bijan Kafi

Contact:SEKEM-Insightc/o SEKEM HoldingP.O.Box 2834, El Horreya, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt insight@SEKEM.com

Pictures: Pages 1,2,3,4: SEKEM; 5: SEKEM Verein Schweiz

No republication without written consent by the publisher.

SEKEM will exhibit within the com-mon Demeter area on the two most important organic trade fairs of this autumn, BioSüd (Augsburg) and BioNord (Hanover) in Germany. The Demeter area will offer plenty of opportunities to visitors to familiar-ize themselves with the wealth of Demeter-certified products on the market. As winners of this year’s com-petition for “Demeter-Product of the Year”, the dairy Monte Ziego will also exhibit as well as the Bingenheimer Saatgut AG and a number of Demeter beekeepers. SEKEM, too, will present new products (also see news on right).

For Bingenheimer Saatgut AG, the two major trade fairs are the ideal opportunity to fully explain to deal-ers directly the benefits of biodynamic cultivation and why Demeter-certified seed varieties are the best alternative to industrially produced seeds. Monte Ziego, winners of this year’s “Demeter-Product of the Year” competition, will use both events to present its goat cheese in olive oil and herbs and its latest innovation, the new „Black Forest Cherry Cheese“ .

Other Demeter partners will be grouped around the Demeter presen-tation area, often with strong regional links. Demeter will present itself as a biodynamic brand community at both exhibitions. This allows trade partners to personally experience the full spec-trum of biodynamic quality. Demeter e.V. is convinced that this is exactly the proper way to differentiate retailers on the competitive organic market.

Source: Demeter e.V.

There are many indications that eco-nomic growth and material prosper-ity will stagnate or even decline in the early industrialized countries in the future. How will this affect the money and banking sector? May interest rates then have a positive effect? How will we ensure capital formation, invest-ment and innovation under these cir-cumstances? And how will social perspectives change under conditions of economic stagnation?

Like-minded individuals in Germany may debate these questions and related issues at this year’s conference of the Denkwerk Zukunft - Foundation for Cultural Renewal, a Berlin-based think-tank. The event is named „Life Without Interest and Growth - A View of a New Era“ and will take place on Saturday, 1. December 2012 in Berlin. As the foundation, SEKEM has long been committed to encourage a rethinking of our current developmen-tal paradigm and develop approaches for a new, sustainable economy.

The conference is open to any inter-ested individual. The conference venue is the Church of Resurrection at the Environmental Forum in Berlin. An application is available on the Internet.

Like last year, the conference will take place in conjunction with a pro-bono concert by the Berlin Staatskapelle directed by Enoch zu Guttenberg in aid of the Foundation NaturTon. Joseph Haydn‘s „The Four Seasons“ will be performed on 1 December 2012 at 8.30pm in the Memorial Church of Berlin. The organ-isers have acquired a number of free tickets for participants. The entry to both events - conference and concert - is free of charge. Concert tickets will be handed out at the conference.

Source: Denkwerk Zukunft

SEKEM Joins Demeter at BioNord and BioSüd

More information:http://www.denkwerk-zukunft.de!

More information:http://www.sekemshop.de!