[E-rundbrief] Info 38 - RLA - "Alternative Nobelpreise" 2003

Matthias Reichl mareichl at ping.at
Do Okt 2 17:57:39 CEST 2003


E-Rundbrief - Info 38

Bad Ischl, 2.10.2003

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
www.begegnungszentrum.at

=========================================

"Alternative Nobelpreise" 2003

2003 Right Livelihood Awards (RLA) to
Pioneers for a Saner World.

(RLA Press Release, Stockholm 2.10.2003 )

The 2003 Right Livelihood Awards go to individuals

and organisations from New Zealand, the Philippines,

South Korea and Egypt working for disarmament, justice,

partnership and environmental sustainability.

The 2003 Right Livelihood Honorary Award honours New Zealand's former Prime 
Minister David Lange, whom the Jury recognises "for his steadfast work over 
many years for a world free of nuclear weapons".

Four recipients share the 2003 Right Livelihood cash Award of SEK 2 million:

Walden Bello and Nicanor Perlas from the Philippines play crucial and 
complementary roles in developing the theoretical and practical bases for a 
world order that benefits all people. The Jury honours Bello and Perlas 
"for their outstanding efforts in educating civil society about the effects 
of corporate globalisation, and how alternatives to it can be implemented".

The Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (South Korea) has since 1989 
worked successfully to make Korean economic development more just, 
inclusive and democratic. The Jury commends "the rigour with which it has 
developed and disseminated its wide-ranging reform programme, based on 
social justice and accountability and the skill with which it is now 
applying the same values to promoting reconciliation with North Korea".

SEKEM (Egypt) shows how a modern business can combine profitability and 
engagement in world markets with a humane and spiritual approach to people 
and respect for the natural environment. The Jury sees in SEKEM "a business 
model for the 21st century in which commercial success is integrated with 
and promotes the social and cultural development of society through the 
ëeconomics of love'".

Further details about the work of these recipients is given on a separate 
datafile.

Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Awards are presented annually in the 
Swedish Parliament and are often referred to as "Alternative Nobel Prizes". 
They were introduced "to honour and support those offering practical and 
exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today". Jakob von 
Uexkull, a Swedish-German philatelic expert, sold his valuable postage 
stamps to provide the original endowment. Alfred Nobel wanted to honour 
those whose work "brought the greatest benefit to humanity". Von Uexkull 
felt that the Nobel Prizes today ignore much work and knowledge vital for 
our world and future.

*       *       *

A Press Conference with the recipients will be held in Stockholm on 
Thursday, December 4th. The award presentation ceremony in the Swedish 
Parliament will be held on December  8th. .

NB. German Press: All recipients will be in Berlin December 9th to 12th.
Contact: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Rosenthaler Str. 40-41, D-10178 Berlin, 
Tel. 0049-30-28534-0, Fax -108, e-mail: info at boell.de

For further information and photos of the 2003 Award recipients, including 
contact addresses:

Kerstin Bennett, Administrative Director
Right Livelihood Award, Stockholm
Telephone: +46 (0)8-702 03 40
Fax: +46 (0)8-702 03 38
E-mail: info at rightlivelihood.se
Internet: www.rightlivelihood.org

-------------------------------------------------------------

The RLA-laureates 2003 - detailled portraits:

DAVID LANGE  (Honorary Award)     -- New Zealand

David Lange was born in 1942 and practised as a lawyer before being elected 
to the New Zealand Parliament. He is known as the New Zealand Prime 
Minister whose government, in 1984, passed legislation which banned 
nuclear-powered and armed vessels (including aircraft) from New Zealand 
(NZ) territory, and promoted the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. 
The US reacted to this policy against weapons of mass destruction by 
cancelling all defence exercises, cutting intelligence sharing and demoting 
NZ from ally to "friend", effectively making the ANZUS security alliance 
inoperable.

David Lange personally defended the policy and promoted nuclear disarmament 
nationally and internationally. He spoke extensively around the world, 
including an address to the Conference on Disarmament and the UN General 
Assembly. In 1985 he won a debate at the Oxford Union against the US 
fundamentalist Christian Rev. Jerry Falwell, arguing in the affirmative 
that "nuclear weapons are morally indefensible". This was televised 
throughout the US along with other interviews for various TV programmes. He 
became the champion of peace groups around the world and spoke at many 
peace conferences. He joined Parliamentarians for Global Action delegations 
to world leaders to discuss key disarmament issues. To their credit, 
subsequent New Zealand Governments have persevered with the anti-nuclear 
policy, which remains in place today. Lange told his story about the policy 
in his book, "Nuclear Free: The New Zealand Way", published in 1990.

The nuclear-free policy was not a one-off for Lange. Back in 1975 he 
defended peace activists in the courts, after they were arrested for 
protesting against the visits of nuclear powered and armed warships 
entering Auckland. As Prime Minister he also negotiated a settlement with 
France, brokered by the UN Secretary General, as compensation after the 
French government admitted that its secret service agents had detonated a 
bomb which sank the Greenpeace Flagship "Rainbow Warrior" in Auckland 
harbour in 1985, killing one person. In 1991 he sent a statement about the 
importance of "demonstration as an instrument of international political 
betterment" to be read at the trial of New Zealander Moana Cole during her 
trial in the US for action taken against US bombers during the Gulf War. He 
travelled to Iraq in 1999 negotiated and gained the release of NZ hostages. 
He was an advocate for the World Court Project and wrote the foreword for 
the booklet outlining the case. The Project resulted in the qualified 
judgement of the World Court in 1996 that the threat or use of nuclear 
weapons is against international law. Most recently Lange was emphatic in 
his support for the current NZ Prime Minister, Helen Clark, when she 
criticised the US over the Iraq War.

Contact Details:
Rt Hon David Lange
PO Box 59120
Mangere Bridge
Auckland,
NEW ZEALAND
Tel work: +64 9 622 0382
Fax: +64 9 622 0382
E-mail: lange at hudcorp.co.nz

------------------------------------------------------------

WALDEN BELLO  -- Philippines

Walden Bello is one of the leading critics of the current model of economic 
globalisation, combining the roles of intellectual and activist.  As a 
human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and 
journalist, and through a combination of courage as a dissident, with an 
extraordinary breadth of published output and personal charisma, he has 
made a major contribution to the international case against 
corporate-driven globalisation.

Bello was born in Manila in the Philippines in 1945.  He was studying in 
Princeton for a sociology Ph.D in 1972 when Ferdinand Marcos took power, 
and plunged into political activism, collecting his Ph.D, but not returning 
to the university for another 20 years.  Over the next two decades, he 
became a key figure in the international movement to restore democracy in 
the Philippines, co-ordinating the Anti-Martial Law Coalition and 
establishing the Philippines Human Rights Lobby in Washington.

He was arrested repeatedly and finally jailed by the US authorities in 1978 
for leading the non-violent takeover of the Philippine consulate in San 
Francisco.  He was released a week later after a hunger strike to publicise 
human rights abuses in his home country.

While campaigning on human rights he saw how the World Bank and IMF loans 
and grants were supporting the Marcos regime in power. These provided the 
material for his book "Development Debacle" (1982), which became an 
underground bestseller in the Philippines and helped create the citizen's 
movement that eventually deposed Marcos in 1986.

After the fall of Marcos, Bello joined the NGO Food First in the USA, and 
began to expand his coverage of the Bretton Woods institutions, in 
particular studying the "newly industrialised countries" of Asia.  His 
critique of the Asian economic "miracle", "Dragons in Distress", was 
written six years before the financial collapse that swept through the region.

His recent work has been criticising the financial subjugation of 
developing countries and promoting alternative models of development that 
would make countries less dependent on foreign capital.

In 1995, he was co-founder of "Focus on the Global South", of which he is 
now executive director. Focus seeks to build grassroots capacity to tackle 
wider regional issues of development and capital flows.  When the Asian 
Financial Crisis struck two years later, Focus played a major role 
advocating a different way forward.

Bello argues that "what developing countries and international civil 
society should aim at is not to reform the WTO but, through a combination 
of passive and active measures, to radically reduce its power and make it 
simply another international institution co-existing with and being checked 
by other international organisations, agreements and regional 
groupings'.  It is in such a more fluid, less structured, more pluralistic 
world with multiple checks and balances that the nations and communities of 
the South will be able to carve out the space to develop based on their 
values, their rhythms, and the strategies of their choice."

At the abortive WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999, Bello played a leading role 
in the teach-ins around the protest events and was later beaten up by the 
Seattle police. He was detained again  by the Italian police at the 2001 
G-8 summit in Genoa. Bello played a leading role in elaborating the 
strategy  of the South at the recent Cancun WTO  summit - which derailed 
the meeting in the face of US/EU intransigence.

He has also played a leading role as an environmentalist, and is former 
chairman of the board of Greenpeace Southeast Asia. His 1998 book "A 
Siamese Tragedy", documenting the environmental destruction of Thailand, 
became a bestseller there and won praise from former Thai Prime Minister 
Anand Oanyarachun. It received the Chancellor's Award for best book from 
the University of the Philippines (2000).

Bello has campaigned for years for the withdrawal of US military bases in 
the Philippines, Okinawa and Korea, and was instrumental in setting up the 
Council for Alternative Security in the Asia-Pacific in 1997 and the South 
Asian Peace Coalition in 2000 - both dedicated to denuclearisation and 
demilitarisation, and a new kind of security plan based on meeting people's 
needs.

After September 11 2001, he was a leading voice from the South urging the 
USA not to resort to military intervention - which he believed would 
exacerbate the problem - but to tackle the root causes of terrorism in 
poverty, inequality, injustice and oppression. In March 2002, he led the 
peace mission to the southern Philippine island of Basilan. He also led the 
peace mission of parliamentarians and civil society leaders to Baghdad in 
March 2003 in a last-ditch effort to prevent the US invasion.

Bello's current roles include:

National Chair Emeritus of Akbayan, one of the fastest growing parties in 
the Philippines.
Professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the 
Philippines.

Executive director of Focus on the Global South.

Visiting Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of 
California at Los Angeles.

Board member of Food First, the International Forum on Globalisation, the 
Transnational Institute and the Nautilus Institute.

Bello has won praise for his writing, as the author or editor of 11 books 
on Asian issues and a range of articles, notably "American Lake: The 
nuclear peril in the Pacific" (1984) (co-authored with Peter Hayes and 
Lyuba Zarsky), "People and Power in the Pacific" (1992), "Dark Victory: The 
United States and Global Poverty" (1999), "Global Finance: Thinking on 
regulating speculative capital markets" (2000) and "The Future in the 
Balance: Essays on globalisation and resistance" (2001).  He won the New 
California Media Award for Best International Reporting in 1998. The 
Belgian newspaper "Le Soir" recently called Bello "the most respected 
anti-globalisation thinker in Asia".

Contact details:
Walden Bello
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
c/o CUSRI,
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330
THAILAND
Tel: 662 218 7363/7364/7365/7383
Fax: 662 255 9976
E-mail: admin at focusweb.org
Internet: www.focusweb.org

---------------------------------------------------------

NICANOR PERLAS  --  Philippines

Nicanor Perlas was born in 1950, and graduated with highest honours in 
agriculture from Xavier University. He gave up his masterís degree after 
being drawn into the struggle against the Marcos-promoted Baataan nuclear 
plant in 1978 and had to leave the Philippines after organising a 
conference to expose its dangers.

After the fall of Marcos Perlas was able to return to the Philippines, 
founding the Centre for Alternative Development Initiatives (CADI).

He became a consultant to the Aquino Government on the troubled nuclear 
power plant, and contributed to the decision to mothball it, despite it 
being very near completion, and having cost $2.1 billion.

At the same time he engaged in a campaign against the abuse of pesticides, 
founding the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. This (and very often Perlas 
personally) gave training and technical assistance in 23 provinces in the 
Philippines. Perlas also became a member of the government's Pesticides 
Technical Advisory Committee, which eventually banned 32 of the most 
damaging pesticides and caused the government to invest $ 760 million in 
integrated pest management, which trained more than 100,000 farmers. For 
this work Perlas won the Global 500 Award from UNEP, and one of the TOFIL 
Awards to outstanding Filipinos, both in 1994. In the substantial press 
coverage that accompanied these awards, Perlas was often referred to as "a 
farmer" and his work with CADI still helps farmers to shift away from 
chemical-intensive agriculture.

By this time Perlas was already one of the Philippines' environmental 
leaders. He had set up student environmental groups and his work on nuclear 
power and sustainable agriculture had given him a national profile. He was 
one of the Philippines' NGO delegation to the 1992 Earth Summit. He later 
became heavily involved in the post-Rio process in the Philippines, not 
least through the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), of 
which he has been Civil Society Co-Chair, and helped to formulate and 
implement at the local level Philippine Agenda 21 (PA21). Later in the 
1990s he became Co-Chair of the Green Forum of environmental groups, and he 
has been a member of Mikael Gorbachovís Commission on Globalisation.

Perlas explicitly sought to use PA 21 as a counter-weight to the trade 
liberalisation that was being pushed through the Uruguay Road of the GATT, 
in what he described as a "creative response to the challenge of Èlite 
globalisation." A major practical expression of the PA 21 approach is the 
micro-credit initiative Lifebank, of which Perlas is a Board member. 
Lifebank has so far reached 15,000 families.

Perlas has evolved a "tri-sector" approach to policy-making, which he calls 
"threefolding": "In social threefolding the three global powers - 
government, representing political concerns, business, representing 
economic concerns, and civil society, representing cultural concerns, can 
come together, where appropriate and feasible, to join efforts in solving 
major world problems." This is the subject of Perlas' most recent book, 
"Shaping Globalisation: Cultural Power and Threefolding", (2000). These 
ideas are said to have been important in the process that led to the 
toppling of President Estrada in 2000. Perlas took the book to the "State 
of the World Forum 2000", and has co-founded two networks to take the ideas 
forward globally: "GlobeNet 3" and the "Global Institute for Responsible 
Leadership", which seeks to promote  innovative thinking and collaboration 
across traditional boundaries - departments, organizations, sectors, and 
cultures.

For the past five years Perlas' focus has almost exclusively been on social 
movements and their power to change the world. He counts as one of his 
major achievements that, with Walden Bello, he convinced the Philippine NGO 
scene in 1996, through major talks, the formation of networks and a big 
civil society conference that the issue for the future of the Philippines, 
is the value system underpinning globalisation. Perlas warns that the 
developments we are facing demand a deeper, ethical and spiritual response: 
we face a system not just a management crisis. Thus he asks how our sense 
of identity and humanity will be affected by current technological advances 
(in genetic engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence) which 
could lead to the proliferation of half-human half-machine "silicone 
beings" in the near future.

Contact details:
Nicanor Perlas
Center for Alternative Development Initiatives
Unit 718 Cityland Megaplaza
Garnet rd cor. ADB Avenue
Ortigas Center, Pasig City,
1605 Metro Manila
PHILIPPINES
Tel work: +63 2 687 7481
Fax: +63 2 687 7482
Email: cadi @info.com.ph
Internet: www.cadi.ph

----------------------------------------------------------

CITIZENS' COALITION FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE (CCEJ)  --  South Korea

The CCEJ is a Korean citizens' movement working for economic justice, 
environmental protection, democratic and social development and 
reunification of the divided Korean peninsula. Founded in 1989, it was 
Korea's first fully-fledged citizens' organization and is now one of its 
most influential. It has 35,000 members and 35 local branches, and its work 
is carried out by about 50 staff nationwide, with the guidance and support 
of about 150 specialists who serve on the 17 subcommittees of the Policy 
Research Committee. The subcommittees cover subjects such as Banking, Local 
Autonomy, Finance and Taxation and Welfare.

The founding principles of CCEJ were that it should 1) be led by ordinary 
citizens, 2) use legal and non-violent methods, 3) seek workable 
alternatives, 4) speak for the interests of all people regardless of 
economic standing, and 5) work to overcome greed and egoism in order to 
build a sharing society. Its methods consist of research and development of 
policy alternatives, and lobbying for their enactment into law; public 
education and consensus-building through seminars, conferences, public 
hearings and discussion meetings; keeping the media informed about 
citizens' concerns through press conferences, interviews and constant 
information-sharing; signature campaigns and rallies; publications; and 
organization of members for special activities. The most recent development 
is the establishment of CCEJ Inernational to work for the realization of 
economic justice on the global level.

Despite the broad scope of this citizens' movement, it has been able to 
accomplish significant results in a relatively short time. Among other 
achievements it has:

Successfully got a law enacted to prevent rampant real estate speculation 
and promote housing stability for renters and urban poor people (1989-90);

Led a successful campaign for establishment of the 'real-name system' for 
all financial transactions and property registration (overturning the 
practice of using false names to avoid taxation) (1993);

Proposed the following additional legislation for political and economic 
reform and got it passed by parliament:

·              a law to democratize government administration and make it 
more transparent;

·       a freedom of information act;

·       amendment of election laws related to political funds and political 
party operations.

Organized a nationwide 'People's Coalition to Protect Agriculture', a 
network of 190 organizations, which pressured the government to slow its 
agricultural market opening in order to protect farmers' minimum survival 
(1993-94);

Inaugurated and continuously leads a Citizens' Legislative Movement to 
monitor parliament and lobby for reform legislation;

Successfully mediated civil society conflicts (for example, one between 
Korean traditional medicine practitioners and western-medicine pharmacists 
in 1993);

Established the Right Farming Cooperative, a network of organic farmers, 
which aims to promote wider production and use of organic produce, by 
linking producers and consumers, compiling textbooks and other 
publications, launching a 'Save our soil and water' campaign and holding 
various special events;

Established the Urban Reform Centre, which carries out a public education 
program for the purpose of creating sustainable cities;

Worked continuously for economic reforms, especially for reform of the 
chaebol (giant family-owned business groups which dominate the Korean 
economy), tax reform, establishment of corporate ethics and improvement of 
labour rights;

Played a key role in the establishment of the local autonomy system, i.e. 
the restoration of local democratic structures;

Organized the Asia-Pacific Civil Society Forum...for the purpose of 
identifying problems in the region...and in particular to challenge the 
dominant development model and work to replace it with 'people-centered, 
community-centered and life-centered' development.

In addition it:

Was the first organization to call public attention to the situation of 
foreign migrant workers in Korea and propose legislation for their protection;

Operates the Anti-Corruption Center, which investigates citizens' reports 
on business and government irregularities and has worked to clean up 
corruption in the judicial system;

Carries out a broad and active environmental protection movement through 
the local CCEJ branches and in cooperation with other Korean and 
international environmental organizations;

Works to educate the public for reunification of divided Korea, especially 
through the 'Reconciliation Academy', a lecture series on North Korean 
realities and desirable reunification policies;

In 1999 CCEJ also spun off its "Center for Environment and Development" to 
become the independent "Citizen's Movement for Environment Justice". The 
CMEJ aims to bridge the gap between social and environmental groups in the 
Korean NGO movement; its rationale is that social and environmental 
problems must be treated as one continuum if real solutions are to be 
found. It is also setting up an 'Environmental Justice Forum' to conduct 
research, to work to get its findings adopted and to hold monthly meetings 
with other Korean environmental organisations.

In 2001 CCEJ established the 'Best Foreign Corporation Award', to be 
awarded to the trans-national corporation which scored highest on criteria 
of law observance, ethics and achievement.

On the Korean reunification, CCEJ's Position is as follows:

North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons must not be allowed to be a 
reason for war.
All peaceful means are required to solve the nuclear issue, but no military 
sanctions should be allowed.

Humanitarian aid should go on.

South Korea should maintain its policy of reconciliation and co-operation 
with the North and seek to persuade the North without abandoning talks.

Contact details:
Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice
Soh Kyung-suk
Pierson Bldg. 2nd Fl., 89-27,
Shinmoonro 2-ga
Jongro-gu,
Seoul 110-761
KOREA REP.
Tel work: +82 2 757 7380
Fax: +82 2 757 7382/3
Email:  mmm at ccej.or.kr
Internet: www.ccej.or.kr

--------------------------------------------

SEKEM / DR. IBRAHIM ABOULEISH  --  Egypt

Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish was born in Egypt in 1937. In the year 1956, at the 
age of 19, he began his studies in chemistry, medicine at the University of 
Graz, Austria, receiving his Ph.D. in Pharmacology in 1969. Thereafter he 
then engaged in pharmaceutical research, taking on the position as Head of 
Division for pharmaceutical research until 1977.

In 1975, on a visit to Egypt together with his family, he was overwhelmed 
by the country's pressing problems in education, overpopulation and 
pollution. His admiration for his country led him to establish in 1977 a 
comprehensive development initiative, which he called SEKEM.

The Innovation:

SEKEM is establishing the blueprint for the healthy corporation of the 21st 
century. Taking its name from the hieroglyphic transcription meaning 
'vitality of the sun', SEKEM was the first entity to develop biodynamic 
farming methods in Egypt. These methods are based on the premise that 
organic cultivation improves agro-biodiversity and does not produce any 
unusable waste. All products of the system can be either sold or re-used in 
cultivation, thereby creating a sustainable process.

Background:

Egypt's problems are interrelated and include overpopulation, environmental 
degradation, inadequate education and health care. Agriculture involves 40% 
of the workforce and remains the least developed sector of the economy. 
Cost of agricultural production has increased while the resource base has 
shrunk. Today, Egypt has become one of the world's largest importers of 
food. Because the country's problems are interrelated, SEKEM has built a 
thriving social and cultural base to address Egypt's crumbling health, 
educational and cultural preservation capacities.

Strategy:

SEKEM is formed by three closely interrelated entities: The SEKEM Holding 
Company comprising six companies, each responsible for an aspect of SEKEM's 
business value proposition, the Egyptian Society for Cultural Development 
(SCD), responsible for all cultural aspects, and the Cooperative of SEKEM 
Employees (CSE), responsible for human resource development. Working 
together, they have created a modern corporation based on innovative 
agricultural products and a responsibility towards society and 
environmental sustainability.

The six companies of Sekem Holding Company are: ATOS - produces and markets 
phyto-pharmaceuticals and health products; LIBRA - works with farmers to 
cultivate fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs; HATOR - produces and packs 
fresh fruit and vegetables from Libra; CONYTEX - manufactures and sells 
organic textiles to local and export markets; ISIS - production of 
processed organic foodstuffs; SEKEM - prepares and pre-processes herbs and 
spices.

SEKEM has grown exponentially in the last decade to a nationally renowned 
enterprise and market leader of organic products and phyto-pharmaceuticals. 
It has established reliable links with European and U.S. customers in the 
export trade. Moreover, 55% of its sales are domestic - an essential 
element for SEKEM's long-term sustainability. Its strong commitment to 
innovative development led to the nation-wide application of biodynamic 
methods to control pests and improve crop yields. However, SEKEM's most 
important impact on Egyptian society has generally and most probably been 
achieved through the Egyptian Biodynamic Association (EBDA), an NGO 
established in 1990 as a means of conducting R & D into biodynamic 
agriculture in Egypt and training framers in its methods. In collaboration 
with the Ministry of Agriculture, SEKEM deployed a new system of plant 
protection in cotton, which led to a ban of crop dusting throughout Egypt. 
By 2000, according to UN and FAO reports, pesticide use in Egyptian cotton 
fields had fallen by over 90%, while prior to the ban 35,000 tons of 
chemical pesticides were sprayed yearly. Furthermore nearly 80% of Egyptian 
cotton was being grown organically and average annual yields had increased 
by nearly 30%.

The SEKEM "mother farm" and processing facilities are located on 300 
hectares of land near the town of Belbeis, 60 kms from Cairo. After the 
successful implementation of the biodynamic method in this area, other 
farmers, stunned by the results, started to cooperate with SEKEM. Today, 
approximately 800 farmers from Aswan to Alexandria are applying the 
international guidelines for biodynamic agriculture on 8,000 hectares.

In 1990 SEKEM facilitated the establishment of the Center of Organic 
Agriculture in Egypt (COAE) as a regulatory and certification body, 
according and adhering to DEMETER guidelines and the European Regulations 
for Organic Agriculture.

The SCD is SEKEM's way of reaching out beyond its commercial activity in 
pursuit of its goal to contribute to ìthe comprehensive development of 
Egyptian societyî. It employs approximately 200 people in four main domains 
of activity.

A kindergarten, primary and secondary school, and a special needs education 
program for the children of employees and the neighboring community.

A work-and-education program for children from poorer families in need of 
further income, a vocational training center, literacy classes and a 
training institute for adults.

A Medical Center providing modern medical services and an outreach program, 
treating 30,000 people yearly from the general vicinity.

An Academy for Applied Arts and Sciences to promote scientific research in 
the areas of medicine, pharmacy, biodynamic agriculture, sustainable 
economics and arts.

A number of its social initiatives in the arts and other fields contribute 
to the development of Egyptians, raising their self-esteem and promoting 
mutual respect. In addition, increasingly Egypt's younger generation seeks 
to pursue tertiary education. In response, SEKEM is founding a private 
University offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in arts, science and 
technology.

Today, 2,000 people work in SEKEM. Revenues have grown from 37 million 
Egyptian pounds in 2000 to 100 million in 2003. In 1997, Sekem was awarded 
ISO 9001 certification, was selected "World Wide Project" of the Hannover 
EXPO 2000, and in 2002, it secured a loan from the International Finance 
Corporation of the World Bank.

Through cooperation on projects with sister organizations in Germany and 
the Netherlands, SEKEM has received support from institutions such as the 
European Commission, Ford Foundation, USAID, and the Acumen Fund. SEKEM is 
increasingly seeking to share its experience and acquired knowledge with 
other countries (including India, Palestine, Senegal and Turkey), and has a 
partnership for this purpose with the "Fountain Foundation" in South Africa.

In an article, which appeared in "Business Today Egypt", the Sekem Group 
was described as "an economic powerhouse", but the Group differs from most 
companies in various aspects:

The training of its employees in social awareness and creative arts, as 
well as professional skills "to awaken a person's senses, encourage 
creativity, and foster a sense of social responsibility and ethical 
awareness." Employees are organized in a 'co-operative of SEKEM employees'.

Its management of the value-adding chain from the farmers to the consumers 
based on partnership and transparency, an approach SEKEM calls the 
'economics of love'.

There is also a deep aesthetic commitment. In 2000 the "Cairo Times" wrote: 
"Aesthetically speaking, it is almost eerily organized and clean for a 
farm. The same kind of pastel-colored buildings that comprise the company's 
administrative center are strewn around the farm, connected to each other 
by neat paths lined with flowerbeds and trees. Beyond the central square 
fields of swaying grass and fragrant herbs give the impression that one has 
reached the gates of paradise."

Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish is clearly an important leadership figure in SEKEM. 
He was elected as one of the distinguished Social Entrepreneurs by the 
"Schwab Foundation" to participate within the renowned "World Economic 
Forum". Increasingly though leadership seems to be passing to the next 
generation. The Managing Director of the SEKEM Group is his son Helmy 
Abouleish, born in 1961. Notwithstanding the influence of modern science, 
Dr. Abouleish, who has always been a Muslim, is at pains to stress the 
consistency of SEKEM's approach with Islam: "All the different aspects of 
the company, whether the cultural ones or the economic ones, have been 
developed out of Islam. We believe that it is possible to derive guiding 
principles for everything from pedagogics, to the arts, to economics from 
Islam."

Contact details:
SEKEM Intiative
Ibrahim Abouleish
3, Belbeis Desert Road
POB 2834
El Horreya
Cairo
EGYPT
Tel work: +20 2 656 41 24
Fax: +20 2 656 41 23
Internet: www.sekem.com

=================================================

Aus der RLA-Presseaussendung zusammengestellt von:
Matthias Reichl
Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Wolfgangerstr.26
A-4820 Bad Ischl
Tel. +43-6132-24590
e-mail: mareichl at ping.at
http://www.begegnungszentrum.at




Mehr Informationen über die Mailingliste E-rundbrief