by SEKEM | Mar 9, 2023 | Uncategorized
After the groundbreaking ceremony on the 1st of April 2022 we are delighted that school life has now found its way onto the Sekem El Wahat Farm. With 52 children of six different ages, being educated in the six classrooms it has been enlivened for some time now.
Here the children enjoy a pleasant room climate which is created by the natural and environmentally friendly construction method with the raw materials clay, wood and stone. The rooms offer space for a class size of 24 students.
Stepping out of one of the classrooms, one looks across green grass and newly planted trees to a building that offers space for offices and staff rooms, craft rooms and events.
A little further on, two kindergartens are being built. Five children are the first to look forward to a day with Manal in the morning.
On the other side are the foundation walls of three more classrooms, which will be structurally completed and furnished for the beginning of the next school year.
Our next steps for the first half of 2023 are as follows:
-> Completion of the three further classrooms (doors and windows for 58,000 LE, the roof for
160,000 LE and furnishing for 135,000 LE)
-> Window glass in the main building and kindergarten (10,800 LE)
-> Kitchen equipment and furnishing kindergarten (46,000 LE)
-> Completion of waste water treatment (35,900 LE)
-> Shade roofs main building and kindergarten (120,000 LE)
-> Hot water treatment (35,000 LE)
-> Fly protection doors (9,000 LE)
So in total we are planning to invest another 609,700 LE ≈18,704 €
by SEKEM | Jul 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
Since the establishment of healthy ecosystems is seen by SEKEM as a way to reduce the climate issue, biodiverse ecosystems play a crucial role in controlling the earth’s climate. Therefore, SEKEM is creating a scorecard that does not only consider the issue of the number of species in order to assess the effect of SEKEM’s operations on biodiversity, but also we gauging our success by the amount of sustainably managed and reclaimed land, the number of trees planted, the quality of the soil, the amount of water used, the variety of species represented, and the amount of chemical contamination.
Our farm in Wahat Bahariya is a motivating illustration of how the desert can be turned into green, productive land. Wahat Farm, where land cultivation and biodiversity preservation were balanced, became a haven for numerous birds and insects.
Along with the primary agricultural activity at the Greening the Desert project in Wahat, SEKEM offers an additional environmental service by issuing carbon credits. In order to expand the scope of carbon credits beyond simple emission reduction, SEKEM intends to articulate and include biodiversity’s co benefits into the Economy of Love carbon credit program. This can make it easier to interact with ethical businesses that aim to improve the fertility of the soil, increase wildlife habitat, and diversify the desert landscape in addition to offsetting their emissions.
Commonland visits El-Wahat
In order to implement the 4 Returns Framework, a useful sustainable development tool for system change that connects ecology, community values, culture, and long-term economic sustainability and enables all stakeholders to contribute their vision of a resilient landscape, on the ground, our friends from Commonland visited SEKEM Desert Farm in Wahat in June. The original idea was to implement this structure on the scale of the entire Wahat Bahreya, but Willem Ferwerda (founder and CEO of Commonland) decided to provide SEKEM with the opportunity to do so. At the Social Innovative Forum, which will be held in Wahat in October, all stakeholders, including representatives from the government, business, and local communities, could come together and co-create a perfect vision for Wahat. This ambitious and, needless to say, difficult idea is planned to be discussed in detail at that event.
