100% Organic Agriculture: SEKEM Children Start to Transform Egypt

Around 350 persons of different ages, nationalities and professions contributed to cultivating this season’s Organic wheat at the main SEKEM farm. This came in the framework of the project “Let’s Seed the Future” that SEKEM launched on its 41st anniversary, aiming to realize a 100% Organic Egypt by 2057 – one of the targets that SEKEM assigns in its vision for the coming 40 years.

On an area of around one hectare at the main SEKEM Farm, the joint sowing process of wheat took place throughout the whole month of November. Next to SEKEM employees and students of Heliopolis University (HU), also friends from outside joined this action. Now, 30 students of SEKEM School are proceeding with the cultivation of the Organic golden crops.

SEKEM Students are the pioneers

Every year, the students of the third primary stage pay attention to agricultural topics such as planting and harvesting Organic wheat. “From the seed to the bread, the SEKEM students follow up on the life cycle of wheat”, says Abdulrahman Mohamed, Agriculture Teacher at SEKEM School. This year, the students also contributed to the “Let’s Seed the Future” campaign. Especially interesting is the fact that the project brings different people of different perspectives together for one goal. “And our students are somehow the pioneers as they are are the ones sharing their new experiences and knowledge on this agricultural process,” the teacher adds.

Abdulrahman Mohamed the Agriculture Teacher at SEKEM School, together with his students on their field a few weeks after sowing the wheat seeds.

Spreading the word

And the word gets around. 130 students from different other schools want to do the same as the SEKEM pupils do. 80 of them recently visited the SEKEM farm for this reason in the context of the national project “Children’s University” that Heliopolis University takes part in. “According to the great interest, we now added the seeding activity to the curriculum of the Children’s University”, says Gihan Hamza, Project Manager at HU. Besides, students of the new faculty of Organic Agriculture at HU shall be involved. “We engaged the students to plant Organic herbs in potteries at the university campus,” Hamza tells.

Students of HU Children’s University participated in seeding Organic wheat at SEKEM Farm.

In a mega city like Cairo, of course, also urban gardening needs to be included to such a topic. Hence, students of SEKEM’s Special Education Program made plantable paper cards, containing organic seeds. The recycled papers can easily be planted on balconies and rooftops by people living in the city.

Students of Nefertari School joined the campaign.

“The Future of our earth lies in our hands – in the hands of each and every one of us.’’ Helmy Abouleish

For many years, Egypt has been facing ecological challenges such as desertification, land degradation, climate change or food insecurity. “Let’s Seed the Future” aims to reflect the role that Organic agriculture plays in addressing these challenges. But it also fosters the fact that contributing to building a sustainable future is always connected to an individual as well as societal awareness. “The Future of our earth lies in our hands – in the hands of each and every one of us,” said Helmy Abouleish during the SEKEM festival in regard to transforming Egypt’s agriculture to a 100% sustainable one until 2057. The commitment of SEKEM’s pupils and students, which seems to spread among young people from other educational institutions in Egypt, is one important first step towards this goal.

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