SEKEM‘s Journal for Economy, Culture and Society in Egypt
SEKEM Insight Nr. 72 - June 2008
Dear Readers, many co-workers of SEKEM have plenty of exciting and amusing stories to tell about the daily challenges of development cooperation in rural Egypt. In many the individual experience of the difficulties of seeding innovative techniques or approaches under circumstances of traditional and faith-based lifestyles play a prominent role. Indeed, many such stories could be told taken from the daily life at the SEKEM initiative many of which would tell of failed attempts and the constant need for awareness raising and capacity building. However, the accounts of the successes of the social work of SEKEM that have been realised through perseverance and a steady hand would be equally numerous. Through the long-lasting engagement of many co-workers, convictions held dear for decades or even centuries could be overcome in fruitful ways sensitive to local circumstances. One example is the introduction of such “newfangled” institutions like the SEKEM Medical Centre. These days the Medical Centre completes its most extensive expansion ever. SEKEM Insight reports on its new plans through an extensive report in this issue.
Your Editorial Team
Academy
Medical Centre
School
Subsurface Irrigation
New Developments at the Hospital
SEKEM School pupils perform in theatre
Subsurface Irrigation in the Desert SEKEM Academy Develops Innovative Irrigation Systems
The SEKEM Academy intends to replace traditional flood irrigation with innovative new approaches
SEKEM Academy for applied Arts and Sciences is known to our readers, to our colleagues and to many friends of SEKEM for the artistic performances like musical concerts, drama and art exhibitions, which are designed to enjoy, to learn about culture and to give artists and our colleagues a possibility and audience to express their artistic abilities. But what about the sciences? What happens behind those doors of laboratories and offices? SEKEM Insight will report in a loose series about the research projects of the SEKEM Academy, which are under development during this year. They include
a long list of pharmaceutical product development projects as well as projects in the field of organic agriculture, application of renewable energy and responsible and effective water management systems. With these projects designed and conducted in the academy, SEKEM lives up to its responsibility of being a leader in Egypt for environmental protection. Hopefully the projects will be applied in manifold ways in Egypt. Subsurface Irrigation – an effective way to save water consumption in Egypt’s agricultural production
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SEKEM‘s own water is extracted mostly from deep wells on the SEKEM-Farm itself
The team of SEKEM Academy started with a project to develop a functional, cost effective subsurface irrigation system in March 2008. The target of this project is to develop an irrigation system which is suitable for Egyptian farmers, their climate and conditions and which reduces the use of water being used in Egypt’s agriculture. Egypt is a country poor of water. Although the river Nile seems to be mighty and broad and brings a huge amount of water through Egypt, the water per inhabitant of Egypt’s 80 Mio people is below 1.000 litre per year, which is a very low level to ensure production of food and a decent way of living. Egypt’s population is growing and because the amount of water will not augment, there is an urgent need to find effective ways to save water quality and reduce water consumption. Biodynamic agriculture as a farming method already reduces the water consumption, when comparing the same irrigation methods on biodynamic and conventional farms. The richer soil and more humus of biodynamic farms holds the water for a longer time. However, there is still a huge potential to reduce water consumption by using more effective irrigation methods. Subsurface irrigation is known to reduce the evaporation of water during the irrigation process. When flooding the fields as is still common on most farms in Egypt, water evaporates quickly on its way to the plant and even sprinklers cannot exclude
this effect although they are a good step ahead already. Especially on sandy soils a high amount of water is needed, because the soil can hold it very poorly. So the saving effects will be especially high on new land reclamation projects, like the new SEKEM farms on the Sinai and in the Oasis. But subsurface irrigation requires a good technology and detailed know-how. The project team intends to develop this in a field trial phase on 5 feddans (roughly 5acre) over 6 months and then adapt the system to the whole Adlia farm, one of SEKEM’s large farms as an example. The design phase of the project was already closed end of April and all purchases made based on informed choices. The installation of the subsurface lines already started on the test area and will be completed in August including the necessary filtration system, pressure regulators, the air and vacuum relief valves, pressure gauges and automatic valves. Also a weather station and tri-scan probes will be fixed to have a forecast of climate change and a continuous reports about amount of water in the soil to make sure that we use the needed amount of water in the right time. During the next 6 months it is planned to run the system on fruit and vegetable production and on fields with different soil blocks additives and different pipeline materials to test, which is the most successful. The project team will closely monitor different parameters including water application, soil moisture, plant health and salt accumulation to evaluate the system at the end of the trial phase. Hopes are high that the subsurface irrigation system will not only significantly reduce the water consumption but also lead to stronger plants, because they will be irrigated directly at the roots.
Win Your Rights Egypt‘s First Youth Competition for Civic Engagement Takes Off The event „Win Your Rights“ is a new project by the Ministry of Education and Schooling in Egypt. It pursues the aim of instilling ideals of an inclusive society, justice and the rule of law, tolerance and diversity, equal rights and civic responsibility in young children. It intends to encourage them to develop critical thinking and proactively take on their responsibilities as Egyptian citizens. Moreover, the project In order to achieve this goal the project launched a national competition in democracy education with participation of 90 schools, 270 teachers and almost 6.000 pupils of the secondary schools from four governorates. It is to last 20 months. The pupils compete for their knowledge and abilities in three separate phases: essay writing, debates, and community initiatives. SEKEM not only takes part in the competition but also sponsors the participation of two other public schools. On 8 May the public festivities celebrating the closure of the first phase were held at the occasion of which children built colourful kites and flew them over the premises of the event. The teachers that had supported and facilitated the activities were themselves honoured for their work through a celebration awarding to them official certificates. Overall, 26 pupils from the SEKEM School plus 37 of the aforementioned two public schools had participated on behalf of the SEKEM-led group of institutions. SEKEM’s trainers Mrs. Mahasen El Nagar, Mr. Mohamed Hefni and Mr. Mohamed Anwar had supported the children through intensive educational measures. Samaa Shehab, Salem el Masri (teacher)
Dr. Hany Said, Christina Boecker
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Medical Centre Completes Expansion Co-workers of the SEKEM Hospital inaugurate new premises
Refreshing, Healthy and Easy to Find
At the end of 2007 the SEKEM Medical Centre completed its most significant expansion in the history of its existence. With its completion an important phase in its development comes to a close. The new premises not only relieve the responsible executives of the institution of the increasingly difficult management of an ever increasing stream of patients. The new buildings also provide additional space for new forms of therapy. The new wing running in an East-West direction that has been added to the Northern side of the old building now forms a harmonious part of the entirety of the new complex taking over most of its architectural features.
On 15 June ISIS began with a comprehensive marketing campaign for its ISIS fruit juices and drinks in organic quality in a new packaging: TetraPack. This new form of packaging has become increasingly popular in Egypt with customers alike as it is considered modern and much easier to handle than glass bottles. Egyptian resellers and stores prefer TetraPacks over bottles for the same reasons.
After entering the middle section of the old building patients find new rooms in the Northern wing that have been prepared to house the administration, a reception and examination room, and a room for endoscopy in which also therapeutic flushings can be offered. The room is connected to multifunctional ultra sound equipment. Adjacent to this section and separated by stairs to the new 1st floor are a room for circulatory diagnostics and a reception room for a cardiologist. Two additional rooms follow that house specialised revitalisation therapies. Since autumn 2007 the team of the Medical Centre has been reinforced with Mrs. Johanna Schneider from Germany who has joined the team as an experienced physiotherapist. She has begun to complete the new rooms for physiotherapy in the Southern wing with the equipment required for therapy and massage soon even including water-based variants. The Medical Centre aims to expand this department also through new personnel. The partially completed first floor already is home to the regular
employees’ meetings and most educational offerings of the social workers currently engaged in carrying out the “13 villages project” that addresses health and sanitary issues in a dozen villages in the vicinity of the centre. Furthermore, courses in first aid, anthroposophic medicine, and other informational events are held here. In late April I was happy to welcome 30 sheikhs from the surrounding mosques to the centre in these rooms. The dignitaries were participants of a educational event on the dangers and effects of female genital mutilation. Next to these rooms is a new spacious area that has been made available to new offerings in curative eurythmy. The co-workers can now begin performing this eminently important therapy directly inside the Medical Centre itself. It is only thanks to the great number of donations made available through SEKEM through the German support foundation that these new possibilities at the centre could now have been made available to the patients from the surroundings of the SEKEM farm. The SEKEM coworkers and the board of the support foundation wish to express their gratitude for all contributions made over the past years. Considering how many community projects SEKEM still envisions to realise over the coming years these donations will remain to be an integral part of its ability to provide much-needed services to the Egyptian rural public for many years to come.
The juices and drinks in the flavours of mango, orange, grapes, guava and multi-fruit cocktail had already become stars on store shelves over the course of the past year even when sold in glass bottles. However, they have to be kept refrigerated and are thus not available everywhere. With the introduction of the new packaging in 1 litre and 200ml sizes more stores can now offer ISIS’ new refreshing products particularly during the summer months. The introduction of the new juices is accompanied by a marketing campaign including advertisement in newspapers, flyers, posters in public spaces and in stores, television and radio spots as well as trials in supermarkets. Christina Boecker
Dr. Hans Werner
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„House of Wisdom“ Opens at SEKEM
Fate and Destiny
On 21 April 2008 the SEKEM Academy saw the premiere of the theatre pay „House of Wisdom. The play was performed by a group of male and female teachers of the SEKEM School in the Arabic language. It was directed by Dorothea Walter.
A number of 80 students from the SEKEM School’s fourth graders to the students of the Vocational Training Centre participated in a presentation on 17 April in SEKEM‘s Roman Theatre presenting to the public a new production integrating of theatre, eurythmy, music and recital performances. The audience enjoyed happy children, an attractive stage scenery and a famous folk story plot well known to Egyptians.
The play tells the story of a young sultan who on the Arabic island of Helm in the year 1900 decides to construct a “House of Wisdom“ a spiritual place of knowledge and learning. He takes as a model the ideas of the calif Al-Mamun who had built a similar house in Baghdad a thousand years ago. Using the house, the sultan wishes to educate a society at the beginning of a new century on the need to fostering peaceful and respectful intercultural understanding with other civilisations. To achieve this the sends ten emissaries to Europe with the aim to locate the most renowned works of art and learning of the most notorious European thinkers and poets and to bring them to Helm. Thus the young prince Tuma returns to Helm after a year in Frankfurt, Germany and presents to the sultan the works of Goethe during nine nights of discourse and debate. The sultan and a secret commis-
sion of learned men and women then decide at the end of the nine nights that Goethe must evidently be a formidable poet and thinker worthy of inclusion in the house of wisdom. They go about to produce translations of his works that are to be presented to the youth of Helm in schools and universities. In this theatre play traditional oriental forms of narration present a stunningly fresh and modern idea, one that also stood at the core of Goethe’s work: „It is no longer the time for national literature, it is the time for a world literature.“ By reading the literature of a people the individual will most comprehensive familiarize him or herself with its salient characteristics. It is obviously of particular relevance that the story deals with Goethe in particular as the work of the poet and philosopher has always been at the core of SEKEM’s initiatives, now constructing a new “house of wisdom”, too. The teachers delivered a commendable performance that greatly enlarged their experience and understanding of foreign works of art. Additional performances are planned.
The story is about Marzog, a poor cobbler who has to leave his village because of his greedy neighbour. He experiences numerous adventures and eventually shipwrecks on a remote island encountering the sultan of an unknown people. The story tells of Marzog “crowning” the sultan with the only cloth left to him, a simple turban, and receiving precious gifts as a present by the grateful king. It closes with an account of the jealous neighbour who, after sailing to the island himself, only receives the old turban back from the sultan, thus educating the children of the moral that, as you sow, you will reap. Selim el Masri (teacher), Martina Dinkel
Dorothea Walter
Imprint: Publisher: SEKEM, Egypt The editorial team of SEKEM Insight would like to thank all correspondents who have contributed to this edition. Editors: Christina Boecker Bijan Kafi Contact: SEKEM-Insight c/o Sekem Holding P.O.Box 2834 El Horreya, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt
Pupils of the SEKEM School performing a theatre play for their fellow students
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