Nr. 119 - August 2012
Insight
SEKEM‘s Journal for Culture, Economy, Society and Ecology in Egypt
Editorial Dear Readers, on 1 August 2012 a representative of the Ministry of Education of the Government of Egypt put the last remaining signature under the official authorization documents for SEKEM’s Heliopolis University. With this document, a ten-year approval process comes to a close. Originally, the charitable institution that was then called the SEKEM University, was scheduled to open in late 2004. A difficult political environment and negative experiences with the burgeoning private education sector in Egypt protracted the process. In recent months, the first buildings of the new institution were completed on the outskirts of Cairo. As you can read in this issue of SEKEM Insight, the core groups of the project team have been attending a series of workshops to prepare for their tasks. The general educational and managerial concept was developed in cooperation with international experts, revised several times, and now forms the basis of the courses that will start in September. The SEKEM Insight congratulates all staff of the Heliopolis University and wish them and the students a great start!
Your Team of Editors Find SEKEM also on the Internet at:
Heliopolis Uni
Egypt
Visitor Report
Core Team Ready for Launch
Naguib Mahfouz at the Academy
Impressions from Visiting SEKEM
Workshop Prepares Core Team for Launch of Heliopolis University For months, several project teams of the Heliopolis University have been hard at work on the development of the curricula. They have defined the content of the core program and have established the administrative structures of the institution.
Lower row f.l.t.r.: Dr. Kadria Abdel Motaal, Dr. Amira Motaal, Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish. Second row, f.l.t.r.: Prof. Dr. Radwan Abdelhamid, Prof. Dr. Abdelhamid Alzoheiry (President of HU), Helmy Abouleish, Dr. Gihan Saadawi. Third row, f.l.t.r.: Dr. Omar Ramzy, Dr. Hani Sewilam, Dr. Ibrahim Elghamry. Last row: Birgit Birnstingl, Prof. Dr. Wael Kortam, Bianca Fliss, Dr. Albert Lindermann
O
nly when all individual parts of a body work together seamlessly and in harmony can an organism as work healthily and well also as an organic whole. The same principle holds true for the Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development, SEKEM’s latest educational institution, and a project that has been in the works for almost 10 years. For months several teams have now been hard at
work to complete all the curricula that need to be ready for the launch date that is approaching fast. They have specifically developed the content of the core programme and worked on the administrative procedures and the managerial concept that shall be outlined by this article. In an intensive workshop carried out from 3-5 July, all these streams were finally brought together in order SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 1
Economy
to form an integrated whole. The main objective of this latest workshop in a series of many other preparatory actions was to create a shared space in which every participant on the core team could familiarise himself or herself with the underlying philosophy and idealistic purpose of the Heliopolis University in a more intimate way than before. It aimed to give everyone a chance to develop a shared understanding with regards to the vision, mission and goals of the new institution and outline the everybody’s contribution to it. Sustainable Development is the Heliopolis University’s Fundamental Goal Every aspect of the teaching and learning experience at the Heliopolis University is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the concept of sustainable development. As Prof. Dr. Radwan Abdelhamid, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, puts it: “Education for sustainable development is not about teaching any predefined concept of sustainable development. It is about creating the conditions to learn how to bring about successful societal change in a creative way, in order to create a better future for all.” Therefore, interactive learning, interdisciplinary research and social responsibility are at the heart of the institution’s approach to self-guided study and applied research. Specialized Courses and Faculties The contribution of the specialist faculties to the overall educational programme is reflected in the degrees offered to all prospective students, that are geared towards addressing the fundamental challenges Egypt (and, on a higher level, humankind) is facing now and in the future. Degrees like “Sustainable Business and Economics”, “Water Engineering”, or “Pharmacy with special regard to Phyto-Pharmacy” are meant to empower students to tackle the challenges they may soon face. “People who are educated to prevent
the disasters humankind may face in the near future are those who will be in highest demand. Most people think of those engaging in sustainable development as intellectuals in an ivory tower while in fact these are the ones who are much more prepared to face the realities of life”, says Prof. Dr. Wael Kortam, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics. Dr. Amira Motaal, Associate Professor of Pharmacognosy, adds: “Our curricula are unique because they guide the students through a gradual educational process - from the general sciences in the first year to advanced and highly specialized studies in the second and third years. During the last year, they will be able to choose an area of concentration in which they specialize in preparation for a distinct role in working life. Additionally, they are expected to complete practical training and write a final thesis – features unique to Egyptian higher education.” The Core Programme Next to these specialized courses, all students take part in a mandatory humanistic core programme with 15 percent of their study time. This programme has been fully integrated into the specialised programmes. While the latter provide a professional perspective on a single subject area, the core programme offers a complementary and more general perspective on fundamental issues. Students of all faculties will have to take courses in fields such as nature and community; the arts, culture and development; science and innovation; language, communications and enterprise. Dr. Alexander Schieffer, who co-developed the core curriculum, points out that “subjects, such as art, are included, since education the arts directly contribute to the development of one’s personality and consciousness. The core programme aims at the development of the human being as such. Thus, it incorporates much more than just the arts.” Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish further specifies that “intuition and imagination are the
factors that make a person successful. They tend to develop where artists and engineers (arts and science) meet.” Social Innovation Center Sustainable development can only have a lasting impact if it takes all four spheres of societal life into account, that is the economic life, social life, cultural life, and ecology. Similarly, Prof. Dr. Ronnie Lessem, who also worked on the core curriculum, points out, that it is important that the specialised studies and the core programme are closely interrelated. Therefore, there must be an institution within the Heliopolis University that observes that the principles of sustainable development are respected in every aspect of teaching, learning, and life of the faculties. The Social Innovation Center will be at the heart of the university and aim to fulfil just that role. It will observe, that all ventures of the university are in line with the principles of sustainable development, and will guide research and education in order to pursue social innovation that benefits enterprises, communities, and society in its entirety alike. The feedback on the recent training workshop given by the participants was overwhelmingly positive. “It helped build the spirit that calls us to a vision shared by everyone“, says Prof. Dr. Abdelhamid Al Zoheiry, the President of the Heliopolis University. “We strive to be a higher education institution with a ‘deeper meaning’. To be able to live up this ideal, the university team needs to become a living community. I think the workshop helped us strengthen the bonds that connect us, make us stronger, and experience ourselves as a true team, guided by one vision. This workshop was a very meaningful and thus important event that put us well on our way to our launch this coming September.” Bianca Fliss
!
More information: http://www.hu.edu.eg
SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 2
Culture
Naguib Mahfouz and His Characters On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, the play „Naguib Mahfouz and his characters“ was performed at the Heliopolis Academy in June to great acclaim.
short stories and novellas. In 1988, he became the first and so far only Arab author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is also considered the „father of the Egyptian novel“ and was one of the leading intellectuals of the Arab world.
Naguib Mahfouz shortly before his death in 2006.
T
he play performed at SEKEM’s Heliopolis Academy on the outskirts of Cairo is the work of Mamdouh Mohamed, a eurythmy teacher at the SEKEM School. It had been rehearsed as a group project by the participants of the course „Literature and Drama in Everyday Business“ under the guidance of Dorothea Walter (Stuttgart and Cairo). This course is part of the training programme „Communication, Creativity and Awareness“ that has been offered as a training to the staff members of the sales teams of SEKEM’s firms ISIS and ATOS for the past six months (see SEKEM Insight 07.12). The performance was supported by a choir of teachers from the SEKEM School and Arab musicians.
a quirky and original creation that in most parts resembled more a collage than a play. In the performance, selected figures from Naguib Mahfouz‘s works meet and engage in a number of conversations. These figures reflect not only the Egyptian society that Mahfouz’ literature deals with with exceptional mastery. The persons appearing on stage also embody aspects of Mahfouz‘s own personality. This was the idea of the author Mohamed Mamdouh and the seminal concept leading to the creation of the piece. The Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. His oeuvre includes more than forty novels,
No Ordinary Theatre The piece performed was not a theatre play in the traditional sense. It was
You can visit SEKEM yourself: www.SEKEM-reisen.de www.aventerra.de
The philosophy graduate worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of Education since the 1930s. Next to his job, he began to write short stories and, in 1939, published the first of three novels about the Pharaonic period of Egypt’s history. Given the semi-colonial status of the Egypt of King Faruq at the time of writing, these historical novels represented an attempt to strengthen Egyptian identity through a reflection of its early millennia of development. In the 1940s, Mahfouz‘ novels turned realistic and reflected contemporary societal topics. After „The Midaq Alley“ he published the Cairo trilogy („Between the Palaces,“ „Palace of Desire“ and „Sugar Street“) and earned full recognition as Egypt’s leading writer. In these three works that made him famous globally, he tells the story of a Cairo merchant family across three generations. Through their story, he traces the transformational processes the Egyptian society went through during the first half of the 20th century due to a general modernization process and its contacts with the global West. For the trilogy, Mahfouz also received the Egyptian State Prize for Literature. „Knocking on the door of meaning“ “Science leads people to the light of ideas while art unites their emotions. Science and art are meant to aid people in the building of a better future”, says Mahfouz in its trilogy. He adds in another article: “Art transcends itself SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 3
Culture
and the beauty of the sky is directly connected to an individual’s mind and conscience. The human community encompasses the depths of the earth and all dimensions of the sky”. The play presented these and other quotes by Mahfouz in an impressive, artistically advanced way, recited by the invisible chorus from the back of the stage. The actors and orators vividly demonstrated the amazing gift of the creative power of speech inherent in the works by Naguib Mahfouz. Due to the invisibility of the individual actors forming the choir, an intensely atmospheric “listening space” was created which turned the focus of the audiences’ attention firmly on the spoken word. Visual representations of milestones in the life of Naguib Mahfouz in the form of pictures presented on stage created a living scenario that unfolded right in the middle of the action of the play with its various interpersonal interactions itself. Through this artistic tweak of the choreography by Dorothea Walter, the various time periods of past and present became intertwined in constant reciprocity. This brought to the fore the immense importance of the work of Naguib Mahfouz for the future: it is up to us to recognize this importance and to “knock on the door of meaning”, about which Mahfouz writes verbatim in “The Journey of Ibn Fatuma”: “Meaning will not reveal itself as long as you do not knock on its door.” The performance of the piece at SEKEM’s Academy also represented a real challenge for all participants. They had to embark on a journey into their own selves. They needed to come to grips with the individual characters of Mahfouz‘s work and the various ways in which they embodied traits of their own personalities or reflected their “human condition” in multi-faceted ways and forms. Thus, the quote expressed at the end of the piece represented a fitting closure to the event: „Eventually, we have lived his life and he lived our lives.“ Martina Dinkel, Dorothea Walter
Distributors and Their Customers Visit SEKEM
F
rom 29 April to 6 May 2012 our group had a wonderful, versatile, and inspiring time in Egypt while visiting the country, Cairo, and SEKEM. “We”, that was our group of two German wholesalers of organic food and their clients: Bodan and Handelskontor Willmann. For years, we have worked with SEKEM through the sale of the products of some of their companies. Therefore, we had particularly wanted to give our own customers the opportunity to get a full picture of the background and circumstances of production in Egypt. The offer was taken up by 21 of these clients who subsequently traveled to Egypt with us. Many of us wanted to get to know the country and its people and experience the particular culture of Egypt. Some had read the book of Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish or heard about the SEKEM Initiative through other means prior to our departure. They were particularly interested in familiarising themselves with the specific modes of implementation of the “SEKEM vision”. Still others were primarily interested in the concrete practice of turning dry desert grounds into fertile landscapes through composting and bio-dynamic farming. Vibrant Life and Ecological Lifestyles We were housed on the main SEKEM farm just outside of Cairo in wonderfully bright, friendly, and well-kept rooms. SEKEM staff provided us with exceptional service was very attentive to us the entire time of our visit. It was highly interesting to experience the contrasts of a country in transition at this point in history, to get a glimpse of its historical development, and to learn to better understand the acute problems of today. However, what left a particularly lasting impression with us, was our first-hand experience of the Egyptian people and the ways the SEKEM vision to develop the
desert earth into a livable, peopleand nature-oriented space for life and work has been implemented over the past 35 years. It was impressive to see that what has been realised was not a predefined concept but a project put forth in true cooperation with local people, responsive to the natural conditions of their livelihoods, to create a living organism. This process is based on the one hand on respect for the local natural and social conditions, and on the other hand offers an oasis that stands out as an idea come to life out of the monotony of the desert. It offers peace, and an environment for work that some call an “economy of love”. Realising Education for Everyone Each of us was full of respect for the power, perseverance, stamina, and the humanistic perspective of the executive staff at SEKEM. Depending on the individual interest of us visitors, the enthusiasm of everyone lay with the achievements in public health for the poor, ecological animal husbandry, or the plan to bring about human-centred education for everyone. We found an entirely convincing implementation of the bio-dynamic method of farming. The products easily persuaded us of their quality. We drank delicious juices and ate fresh vegetables, cereals, and herbs. We felt extremely well looked after and were able to trial the various herbal supplements and teas on many occasions. The fact that a majority of these products remain in the country developing new markets, is only appropriate. Each of us would like to come back and continue to contribute to serve the needs of the initiative, thereby ensuring that its benefits may have an impact long into the future. Pia Müller
SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 4
Economy
The Business Development of the SEKEM Group in the Year 2012 Turnover (consolidated)
100 Mio. EGP
2011
The turnover of the second quarter increased strongly by 13 per cent. The increase originates in more robust local market which was still weak in the same period in 2011 right after the political and economic turmoil. Also marketing activities were significantly improved compared to last year, notably online marketing.
113 Mio. EGP
2012
Shares of Sales (domestic vs. foreign)
2011
69%
2012
31%
76% Lokal
24%
The strong increase in turnover is reflected in the increase of the local market share of sales by SEKEM companies. The share substantially increased from 69 per cent to 76 per cent. This shows that the local market became more versatile and robust in 2012 compared to 2011. The marketing activities were also mainly aimed at the local market due to the great potential and leeway the SEKEM marketing experts saw in the local market.
Export
Shares of Sales (by product category)
12% 12% 15%
Farming
Pharma
62%
Textiles
FMCG
The sector of fast moving consumer goods (mainly the food and beverage sector) in which the SEKEM company ISIS operates in is still the locomotive of SEKEM’s sales. 62 per cent of the sales mix can be allocated to this sector. The farming and pharma sector are at 11.5 per cent while particularly the pharma sector with the SEKEM company ATOS are expected to increase sales in the future due to a change in management. The textile sector (NatureTex) has a solid sales share of 15 per cent.
SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 5
Impressions
Impressions from SEKEM
A
ngela Hofmann, responsible at SEKEM for the cultivation of demeter products and animal husbandry, has just returned from the SEKEM farm situated in the Oasis of Bahareya to the West of Cairo, far in the desert. The site recently introduced mechanised hay harvesting techniques: „We, that is Simon Ritzkowsky, our new farmer, Simon Merckens, and I, have been supervising this harvest. As you can see in the pictures, it was lovely - you only have to add the intense scent of hay! We felt like in the foothills of the Alps, except for the extreme temperatures of up to 42° (at humidity levels of only 20%). As the fasting month of Ramadan began during our stay, work was scheduled from 4-11 in the morning. Irrigation was performed throughout the night. Then all generators were turned off, and everyone had siesta until the evening when we broke the fast together. Farm staff was proud of the high yield this year and happy about this first mechanised production season. We also brought along a load of hay for the cows on the SEKEM farm!”
SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 6
News in Brief
New Alanus Professors Now Teaching in Mannheim
Alanus-Conference Strives to Rethink Economy
World Future Council Publishes Action Plan
At the end of the summer term 2012, Marcelo da Veiga, Rector of the Alanus University in Alfter near Bonn (Germany), issued the certificates of appointment of three new professors at the Institute for Waldorf Education, Inclusion and Interculturality in Mannheim.
The Alanus University in Alfter near Bonn (Germany), partner institution of the University of Heliopolis, will aim to “rethink economy” at a public conference at the Institute for Social Organics on 19 September 2012.
On the occasion of the 40th World Environment Day on 5 of the UN June, the World Future Council (WFC), of which also SEKEM is a part, has published an Action Plan encompassing 24 specific policies which must be implemented globally in order to sustain life on Earth, the Council says in a recent press release. The document is titled „Saving our Shared Future - Best Policies to Regenerate our World“. It is the result of a five-year consultation process with members of parliament, national and international legislators, academics and civil society organizations.
Martin Basfeld was appointed for the area of science and philosophical anthropology, Matthias Bunge for the field of educational philosophy and Albert Schmelzer is now Professor of Education with a focus on Waldorf education and interculturality. Martin Basfeld studied physics in Göttingen and worked as a research assistant at the Friedrich von Hardenberg Institute for Cul tural Studies in Heidelberg. Since 2011 he has been lecturer at the Institute for Waldorf Education, Inclusion and Interculturality. Matthias Bunge studied history of art, classical archeology and philosophy. From 1983 to 2004 he worked at the University of EichstättIngolstadt in research and teaching. Since 2010 he has been working at the Free University Mannheim, and since 2011 at the Institute for Waldorf Education as a lecturer in the philosophical and aesthetic foundations of Waldorf education. Albert Schmelzer studied in Münster, Tübingen and Angers, Romance studies, theology and sociology. After receiving his state examination and master‘s degree he completed his doctorate in 1990 at the University of Bochum. Since that time, Schmelzer has been at the Free University of Mannheim in teacher education and, since 2011, at the Institute for Waldorf Education, inclusion and interculturality. Source: Institute for Waldorf Education
In preparation for the event, the participants of the last annual meeting and other invited entrepreneurs were asked to present their thoughts on the most pressing issues concerning the establishment of „Enterprises of the Future“. The issues raised during the survey of the participants will be addressed in the forthcoming conference contributions by the speakers: Prof. Dr. Helge Löbler, Prof. Dr. E. Götz Rehn, and Prof. Götz W. Werner. Various working groups In the afternoon will aim to deepen the understanding of different perspectives. All participants are expected to address these issues together and focus on their crucial aspects: the realisation of the free individual. Only an economy that serves this purpose may be sensible, future-oriented, and sustainable in the long term, the organizers claim. They invite all interested individuals to the event to receive and inspiration, develop new ideas, and meet like-minded people to collaborate with, with a view to meeting the challenges of our time. The conference is aimed at those who perceive themselves engaged in an entrepreneurial activity or interested in a redesign of the economy. The detailed program is available on the website of Alanus University. Source: Alanus University
!
The Action Plan can be downloaded at the address below directly from the Internet presence of the World Future Council. Source: World Future Council
!
More information: http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/fileadmin/user_ upload/PDF/Global_Policy_Action_Plan.pdf
Masthead: The editors of SEKEM Insight wish to thank all contributors to this issue. Editor: Bijan Kafi Contact: SEKEM-Insight c/o SEKEM Holding P.O.Box 2834, El Horreya, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt insight@SEKEM.com Pictures: Seite 1: SEKEM; 3: Unbekannte Quelle; 6: Angela Hofmann. No republication without written consent by the publisher.
More information: http://www.alanus.edu/726.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_ news%5D=620&cHash=c5cf5736b5fe849b41d51eb3 8b95022b (in German)
SEKEM Insight | August 2012 | Page 7