SEKEM Insight EN 10.10

Nr. 98 - October 2010

Insight

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

Editorial Dear Readers,

these days “social entrepreneurship” is on everyone’s lips. In recent years the topic has come out of the niche of public news and entered the halls of the renowned business schools and universities.

New Medicine

Social Life

Media

Complementary Medicine in Egypt

Culture in Daily Life in SEKEM

Interviews and Events with SEKEM

Culture in Daily Life in SEKEM Cultural participation, personal development and self-determined living spirituality characterize the life and work in SEKEM.

However, all too often the social and cultural commitment of a forprofit company is solely a marketing tool or add-on value to “business as usual”.

At SEKEM the spiritual and cultural life of its co-workers with its pillars of education, arts and culture, and spirituality embodied in daily communal practice is, however, the basis for all life and work.

Of course, art and culture cannot easily play an equally important role in all fields of everyday commercial activity and in all places in a large and decentralised company the size of SEKEM. However, in many locations it is. And even where spiritual matters seem to be far removed from the needs of “daily business” the impact of the cultural life is inspiring work even far away.

In this issue we introduce you to the cultural life in SEKEM as it is shown in its latest sustainability report and explain what activities it includes to foster diversity and individual development in SEKEM.

Your Team of Editors

Art and the daily life belong together: the artists of SEKEM’s Eurythmy Ensemble frequently perform for the co-workers of the firms.

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his month SEKEM Insight continues to summarize the remaining of the interrelated chapters of the SEKEM Report on Sustainable Development 2009, this time focusing on the cultural and spiritual life. The dimension of ‘cultural life’ is about the free, individual development of the individuals within SEKEM, for the development of consciousness forming the basis for a comprehensive understanding of sustainable development.

As symbolized by the Sustainability Flower, sustainable development at SEKEM unfolds in four dimensions of cultural life, societal life, and economic life, embedded in ecology (see SEKEM Insight 08 and 09/2010). SEKEM reports in detail on what is currently done to support the development of employees and broader community through its continuously expanding institutions and activities in the fields of arts, education, research, health, and community development in the SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 1

Economy

All green: the sustainability report 2009 shows a thoroughly positive outlook on the progress of the social and cultural aspects of SEKEM‘s development.

report that is available to all readers on request from SEKEM. Basic Education and LifeLong Learning The SEKEM educational institutions consist of a primary and high school, a kindergarten with a section for curative care, a vocational training centre, and the Heliopolis Academy employee training centre. In 2009, the Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development has finally received government approval and thus taken the last hurdle on the way towards formal establishment. It will substantially extend the reach of SEKEM’s development impulse within Egypt and beyond.

So far such activities have been carried out by the numerous educational ventures that have taken up many motifs of Waldorf pedagogy and adapted them for the cultural context. They continue to be administrated by the SEKEM Development Foundation (SDF). In the year 2009 40 infants were enrolled in the SDF’s kindergarten, 161 children in elementary school, 65 at middle school level, 31 in the high school, and 24 in the Special Education Program. The Community School provided education services to 75 Children and 175 trainees were enrolled at the Vocational Training Centre. In total 75 teachers are currently employed in these institutions.

In 2009 apart from continuing the teacher training programme to modernise pedagogy in Egypt and improve arts and language education special emphasis was put on the further development of the SEKEM Environmental Science Centre (SESC) offering interactive science classes and field trips

including a range of practical activities in the exact sciences and on environmental awareness to schools in the greater Cairo area.

Boosting Scientific Research The Heliopolis Academy for Sustainable Development continuously improves its capacity to conduct, publish, and disseminate social and scientific research in the longterm focus areas of medicine, pharmacy, renewable energy, biodynamic agriculture, and arts and the social sciences. Its research is driven by the practical needs of the SEKEM companies and social institutions and is designed to address the future needs of the Egyptian society.

Since 2009 the newly established Special and Sponsored Program (SSP) Centre has been centrally developing and coordinating new research and development (R&D) projects aiming to attract third-party funding. It is also paying special attention to their alignment with the overall SEKEM mission.

The Art Foster Personal Development The Adult Training Centre supports individual capacity building and offers training to SEKEM co-workers emphasizing social and teamworking skills.

Weekly lectures held by Dr. Abouleish on cultural and philosophical topics are open to participation by everyone in SEKEM and frequently and on a regular basis involve employees, students, and teachers as performers.

In 2009, the Adult Training Centre had three responsible staff for creative arts and maintained a small orchestra of 10 SEKEM co-workers plus a number of choir groups involving co-workers, school children, teachers, and

a number of international guests. A large share of pupils received musical lessons, some playing on their own instruments, and eight students were enrolled in the professional Eurythmy training course graduating in 2010, while concurrently also serving as teachers to the school’s children.

Highlights of the 2009 cultural year included the staging of the Goethe’s drama “Faust I” and the performance of Goethe’s “The fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily” by the SEKEM Eurythmy group with musical support from the Heliopolis Academy Chamber Orchestra. International cultural exchange was also expanded resulting in joint programs of the SEKEM choirs and musical groups involving international guests and “touring” the production facilities of SEKEM subsidiaries on several occasions. The annual SEKEM summer orchestra succeeded to attract strong participation by SEKEM students during their summer holidays.

Grounded in Religion and Spirituality Religion and spirituality are recognized in SEKEM as a central pillar of personal development while tolerance, reflection, and dialogue are furthered throughout SEKEM’s institutions. This includes, for instance, a mosque on the farm grounds and the communal celebration of religious holidays. For visitors Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish once annually holds a seminar on a holistic understanding of Islam, including artistic exercises such as Islamic poetry, Arabic script, Qur‘an recitals, and Arabic songs.

Magdalena Kloibhofer

SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 2

Culture

Alternative Medicine for the land of the Nile Complementary medicine in Egypt Dr. Hansueli Albonico and Danielle Lemann summarise the importance of SEKEM‘s medical trainings for Egyptian doctors in a guest article.

Germany) we thus decided to inaugurate in 2006 a regular medical seminar in anthroposophic medicine in Egypt. Since March of that year it has met with great interest as the eighth repetition of the one-to three-day programme this year shows.

Strong demand: the services of the SEKEM Medical Centre have come to be much appreciated by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages.

As holder of a Master of Medical Education Danielle Lemann attempted to give the seminars an increasingly interactive structure involving group work, “whisper groups”, and an introduction to „problem-based learning“ which, as still largely unfamiliar even to Egyptian medical doctors in regular practice proved to be a fascinating challenge. The instrument of continuous training evaluation was surprisingly new to them, too. „Quick Shot“ Medicine

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ince 1977 the SEKEM Initiative has been transforming the Egyptian desert into a lush paradise largely through the means of hard work and biodynamic agriculture. Close to 2.000 individuals directly work for the various businesses, another contribute through their work on around 200 farms throughout Egypt and frequently involving entire families of peasants. SEKEM also cultivates medicinal plants and processes them for commercial purposes, runs a textiles company, schools, an institution for curative care, and a medical centre servicing the entire region.

Anthroposophic Medicine in Egypt?

My wife, Danielle Lemann, and I had been invited to work at the medical centre on an adaptation of anthroposophic medical care to the Egyptian context. Answering the question of how our Egyptian colleagues could

be effectively assisted in familiarising themselves with a medical approach attempting to strike a balance between material and spiritual aspects of health and illness quickly moved to the focus of our activities.

The Western traditional medical paradigm is indeed derived from that of Arab medicine. To this day no need for a complementary medicine seems to be perceived by Egyptian doctors; conventional medicine is widely accepted as „their medicine“. Still, the Qur‘an as well as the New Testament would offer ample material for an advanced understanding of human health and an expanded doctor-patient relation that could encompass spiritual dimensions.

Unfortunately much of this awareness and practical training has been lost both in the global West as in the East.

In cooperation with the longtime mentor to the Medical Centre Dr. Hans Werner (based in Öschelbronn,

Thematically, we tried to build on the experience of the individual participant of encountering a patient during the regular work day at the medical centre. The experiment demonstrated, for example, that it seemed to be nearly impossible for the Egyptian colleagues to not immediately treat a child carrying a fever with aggressive drugs and strong antibiotics. In Egypt antibiotic infusions are often administered even in cases of trivial colds.

This „quick shot medicine“ has many disadvantages also in Egypt: the need for a sustainable development of a healthy immune system in balance with the environment is prevented, immune and auto-immune diseases are becoming more and more frequent.

Egypt exhibits an extremely high prevalence of hepatitis C infections, too, largely as a result of previous schistosomiasis treatment involving multiple use of syringes. Interferon and SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 3

Culture

Interview with Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish at EnlightenNext

As part of its weekly webcast series Radio EnlightenNext’s editor Dr. Tom Steininger, a senior editor of the German version of the magazine EnlightenNext, interviews people who through their work contribute to a new, holistic approach to global development issues.

New experiences: for many peasants treatment at the SEKEM Medical Centre is an unusual experience.

ribavirin are unaffordable for the majority of the Egyptian population.

This suggests a vast opportunity for ventures that would promote affordable treatment with plant-based remedies. In the treatment of hepatoma as well as breast and bladder cancers the impact studies for mistletoe have also proven to be much more effective than in Europe.

Any individual not only has to take in enough nutrients but also enough life forces on a regular basis. A modification of a patient’s diet is, for example in cases of hepatitis, a key to better health. The Egyptian population presently consumes enormous amounts of sugar which additionally weakens an affected liver specifically as refined sugar is essentially a dead substance.

Conventional or Complementary

Seminars and Exercises

Conventional medical drugs are almost exclusively synthetically produced. They are therefore all derived from petroleum. In contrast, the Qur’an as well as Paracelsus have pointed out that all of nature is and should be available to the curative efforts of any doctor. Moreover, there is also a wide range of artistic therapies available. These would allow any physician the treatment of diseases in much more individual and gentle ways. His or her responsibility is then a three-fold one: in addition to the awareness that any healing efforts must affect the entire biography of a patient, the health care professional must also develop an awareness of the social dimension of a patient’s current state of health taking into account the natural environment.

Nutrition is of central importance to the present state and future development of public health also in Egypt.

The fundamental limitation of the possibilities of experience by the seminar-based style of educational training was extended by the communal practice of eurythmy under the experienced guidance of SEKEM’s artistic director, Christoph Graf.

For us visiting practitioners and scientists taking the trip to Egypt and meeting our colleagues at the SEKEM Medical Centre not only proved to be a tremendous advantage to our professional medical experience. It also turned out to be a formidable cultural encounter in difficult times of reawakening cultural and religious polarization on a global scale. The essence of Islam, we learned, will only reveal itself to us through our encounters with the people - not through the headlines of the daily newsmakers.

Dr. Hans Ueli Albonico, Danielle Lemann

The team of editors of EnlightenNext has invited Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish as a studio guest to their regular dialogue series on „Radio EnlightenNext.

The channel has been making use of the new possibilities of web radio distribution for a year and every Thursday from 8 to 9pm broadcasts to a growing audience on „aspects of contemporary evolutionary spirituality“. All broadcasts are available as audio streams and reception is possible with any Internet-enabled computer. Using a telephone connection the audience can also actively participate in the interview.

Listeners can access individual interviews live or in the form of a downloadable file at a later time.

The interview with Dr. Ibrahim abouleish will be broadcast on 11 November 2010 scheduled for 8pm to 9pm. Direct access to „Radio EnlightenNext“ and the recordings of the interviews is available on the website of the station at: http://www. enlightennext.org/webcast/index. php?q=node/193 The latest broadcast can be listened to on the same site at: http://www. enlightennext.org/webcast/index. php?q=audio-germany Source: Radio EnlightenNext

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More information: www.enlightennext.org

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

SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 4

Impressions

Impressions from SEKEM

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he progress on SEKEM’s new farms is startling for many visitors to Egypt and the friends and partners in the world. On the SEKEM farm in Minya that is shown in our picture SEKEM co-workers recently were able to harvest the first dill for processing into other products.

After little more than 2 years of preparatory biodynamic cultivation SEKEM can now harvest the first ingredients for their herbal teas. Back then a desert valley still stretched far and wide at this location cutting into the hills on the Eastern side of the Nile river depression. Minya is a well known agricultural town in Middle Egypt and is already home to many of SEKEM’s small-scale suppliers of raw materials. With the establishment of SEKEM Minya including the acquisition of approximately 2.000 feddans of land destined for cultivation SEKEM’s ISIS has now itself become engaged in agricultural production on a larger scale. The new investments have been made to ensure the safety and quality of the raw produce in the very long term.

SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 5

News in Brief

WFC Launches Website on Exemplary Food Policies

Since 1981, World Food Day is celebrated on October 16th of every year to raise awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger. The facts are still shocking: According to the 2010 Global Hunger Index 925 million of the world‘s population do not have access to sufficient food and drinking water. Consequently, every day 24.000 people die of hunger. To showcase and explain existing policies that can help solve this tragic global failure, on World Food Day 2010 the Hamburg-based World Future Council Foundation (WFC) has launched a new ”Agriculture and Food” section on their policy solutions website www.futurepolicy.org.

The WFC‘s work in this field is based on the conviction that sustainable agriculture and food policies are the basis for providing food security, conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. The information on the new website section serves to help decision-makers find and implement good policies in four fields: Safeguarding food security, conserving genetic resources for food and agriculture, promoting urban farming and supporting organic agriculture.

Many of the policies from all over the world were found and evaluated during the extensive research for the WFC‘s Future Policy Award 2009 which was presented on the topic of successful Food Security Policies. The three winners were the Belo Horizonte Food Security Policy, the Tuscan Seed Conservation Policy and the Cuban Urban Agriculture Policy.

The other three policy areas covered extensively on www.futurepolicy.org are Renewable Energy Policies, Energy Efficiency Policies and Regenerative City Policies.

Quelle: WFC

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More information: www.futurepolicy.org

Panel Discussion on „PseudoSolution Genetic Engineering“

Anthroposophical Books With Added Value

Huge mono-crop areas, massive use of pesticides, and more and more genetically modified (GM) seeds can we continue the farming business as usual? Given the prevalence of global hunger and the loss of fertile soils and biodiversity the 400 authors of the World Agricultural Report have been demanding a radical rethinking of our priorities. On November 4th Benny Härlin of the Future Foundation for Agriculture and Member of the Supervisory Board of the World Agricultural report, and Helmy Abouleish, Managing Director of SEKEM group and advisory board member of the World Future Council will discuss the lack of a long-term perspective of current agricultural policymaking and point to ways out of our global crisis. Tanya Busse, renowned book author, will moderate the event.

„How can business be a fairer, more democratic, caring, and sustainable endeavour, as Rudolf Steiner, advocate of the concept of the threefold social order put it?“ This was the motivating question for the company “Anthrobuch” to sell books in a way that benefits all parties along the value chain. The website bearing the same name is „an initiative to redistribute income in favour of free education institutions.“ It sells anthroposophic books and donates a portion of the revenue to a pre-selected initiative. Currently it has chosen to contribute the proceeds to SEKEM’s development.

The event is organized by the organisation “No genetic engineering in greater Hamburg!”, the GLS Bank and the World Future Council (WFC) Foundation. Over 4 to 7 days in November members of the World Future Council will also meet in Hamburg to pursue the promotion of the rights of future generations. WFC Founder Jakob von Uexküll: „We are very happy that the State Parliament in February 2010, across party lines, has voted unanimously against the cultivation of genetically modified organisms in the greater Hamburg area.“ Together with the initiative for a GM-free metropolitan region of Hamburg, the WFC will continue to put pressure on the Senate and demonstrate the benefits of a GM-free, environmentally friendly agriculture and a long-term sustainable perspective.

Source: Bio-Hamburg.de

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More information: Date: 4. November Time: 7:30 pm Location: Saal A of the main building of Hamburg University at EdmundSiemers-Allee 1, Hamburg

Customers can choose from a range of anthroposophic books from different publishing houses. They make their purchases without having to pay for shipping costs and do not need a password or account. The recipient organizations receive donations to help finance their education projects.

The group of beneficiaries include free education facilities such as Waldorf schools or special education facilities.

Source: Anthrobuch

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More information: http://www.anthrobuch.de

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

Editors: Christina Boecker Bijan Kafi Contact: SEKEM-Insight c/o SEKEM Holding P.O.Box 2834, El Horreya, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt insight@SEKEM.com Pictures: 1,2,3,4: SEKEM No republication without written consent by the publisher.

SEKEM Insight | October 2010 | Page 6