SAP Feeding Knowledge

A new ground-breaking recognition program for members of the SAP Developer Network (SDN) and Business Expert communities (BPX) was started on January 1, 2008. The community member participation will be rewarded with a donation to the United Nations World Food Programme’s Food for Education.

For several years, SAP has successfully encouraged members of the SDN and Business Process Expert communities to share their knowledge and experience with other members through a program that awards points for contributions to the community, such as blog posts, articles, code samples, tutorials, videos or forum posts. Community members vigorously compete to be recognized as top global contributors, and prizes are awarded for reaching point milestones. The new program replaces the distribution and shipping of prizes such as t-shirts with prizes in the form of World Food Programme donations.

This blog will frequently show where the donated money from the CN recognition program is going. Children from Ethiopia, Laos, and Columbia tell us stories about their lives and how the UN WFP with the Food for Education initiative is helping them. Read the first story of a young girl from Columbia:

Catherine is nine years old. She is in Fourth Grade in “Colegio El Saber”, a school located in El Pozón Neighborhood, a marginal area inhabited mainly by displaced people in Cartagena, Colombia.

“When I grow-up, I want to be a cleaning lady.”

Ana Isabel is 6 years old and lives with her family in Villa España neighborhood, a settlement of people displaced by violence, north of Quibdo, in the department of Choco, Colombia.

Her friends call her La Muñe. She likes very much to dance and to play with her brother Nazario and some other children in the neighborhood.

Ana Isabel says that, when she grows up, she wants to work as a maid, because, according to her, women that cook and clean houses are the only ones that can feed their children. Her family has so many needs that frequently her parents do not have the means to feed her and her three brothers every day.

Thanks to WFP support, the school in her neighborhood provides lunch to all children that attend classes. This encourages them to keep going to school, and it is also a way to discourage their parents to take their children out of school to have them go look for their daily bread.

If Ana Isabel keeps going to school, she will have the chance to have different dreams and wishes; and maybe one day her dreams will come true.

Ethiopia is a least-developed country ranked 170 out of 177 countries in the UNDP Human Development Index for 2006. It is the oldest state in the African contintent with a 3000 year history and hereby one of the oldest in the world. It has a population of 77 million with one of the world’s highest incidences of malnutrition and one of the lowest primary-education enrolment ratios. HIV/AIDS is an issue of increasing concern. (further reading on wfp.org)

In November 2006, a group of SAP’s executives with Ernie Gunst, President CSO of the region Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Herbert Heitmann, Senior Vice President Global Communications, visited schools in Addis Ababa and the highlands of Tigray, Ethiopia.

The schools are supported by the WFP funds program “Food for Education” and provide food for the poorest of children while they are at school. In 2006 more than 630.000 children received school feeding in Ethiopia. To get more children into school, the WFP also encourages the entire family and community to participate in the project and motivate parents to send their children to school instead of keeping them at home to tend animals or harvest crops. “The beauty of WFP’ s policy toward humanitarian aid” says Ernie Gunst, “is that they combine food and education, which leads to long term economic sustainability in these countries”.

As statistic of 2002/03 show, this initiative helps to get more children into school. The enrolment growth rate on WFP schools is measured by 4.1 %, compared to non feeding schools with a negative rate of 1.2 %.

During their visit in Ethiopia, SAP’s executives got to see a lot of the schools and their students. They realized that education is a privilege and that the students are proud and happy to go to school.

Stories about this visit and the work of the Food for Education inititiative in Ethiopia will be frequently posted on this blog!

A long day

A normal school day requires a lot of effort if you live in Ban Hoy Sou

As Vanh wakes up each morning just after 4am, her classmates in Ban Nong Boua are still asleep. She must fight against the urge to go back to sleep and ignore the darkness outside. It is this determination that guides the 14 year old, her younger brother and sister who are ethnic Khmu and 13 other children from Ban Hoy Sou as they make the long journey to school in Ban Nong Boua, La District Oudomxay Province.

The children must leave the village at 5am on foot in order to reach school by 7.30am. By 10am Vanh and her siblings are hungry for their mid morning snack, a corn-soya blend (CSB) fortified with vitamins and minerals provided to all the children by the World Food Programme to prevent hunger. Eating CSB helps the children avoid hunger, giving them a better chance to concentrate on their studies during the long day.

Classes at the school finish at 3pm. As most of the children wander back to their homes nearby to help look after their siblings and prepare for dinner, the children of Ban Hoy Sou embark on their hour and a half walk back to their village arriving against the sinking sun with darkness again beginning to fall.

Vanh (right) and fellow students set off on their long journey home, carrying take-home rations of rice.

As in the first story about Ethiopia explained, the group of SAP’ Executives visited various ‘School Feeding’ projects with members of the UN WFP.

One of their first stops was at a school and orphanage in Mekele. This School Feeding supported institution picks up children from families affected by HIV and helps with HIV prevention activities. In towns such as Mekele, the HIV/AIDS-ration is about 15 to 19.9 percent and lot’s of children are orphaned because of that disease. If parents die in Ethiopia, firstly friends and family members care about the children. Only in case, that this first safety net is not holding, need the children help and shelter from institutions like this.

This orphanage also has a library, which is not very well stocked and the children have to share books among themselves when reading. But the visitors realized quickly that the children are happy to have books at all, no matter with whom they had to read them. To the question what types of books they need most, a 14-years-old spokesperson answered: “Math books! Because to become a math teacher, one must understand numbers.”

Columbia, Ethiopia and Laos are the countries, which are supported by the SDN/BPX recognition program. To get an impression of that countries and to see how the UN WFP is helping there, please read the following documents:

Colombia.doc

Ethiopia.doc

Laos.doc

Food aid purchased in Laos helps build sustainable livelihoods

The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) provides food to people in natural and humanitarian disasters. But is it possible for the world’s largest relief programme to address chronic food insecurity in the remote villages of Laos in a way that builds sustainable markets for business and farmers?

WFP’s School Feeding Project in Laos, launched in 2002 is attempting to do both. Ms Phetsamone Phomvichay, a grade 5 student from Phongsaly has been a part of WFP’s School Feeding Project since her first day of school. This entitles her to a mid-morning snack of sweetened corn-soya blend each school day, and a twice yearly ration of rice, canned fish and iodized salt.

Recently Phetsamone was selected as one of the winners in the global WFP Children’s Art Competition. “I love drawing,” she says. Phetsamone’s picture was amongst 13 selected from 40 different countries. Corn-soya blend helps her to concentrate on studying, “I want to keep learning as long as I can, so I can become a teacher.”

Phetsamone with her family and her ‘winning’ drawing!

This story will explain why the ‘School Feeding’ projects in Columbia, Ethiopia and Laos especially have to help the poorest girls to go to school.

Girls and later on women are the caretakers of knowledge and skills within the family, passing them on to the next generation. To educate them, means to educate the whole family and future generations.

However, WFP-figures pointed out, that there are approximately 100 million primary schoolchildren not attending school, and two out of three of them are girls. Girls also form the majority of the 150 million primary school-age children who begin school but drop out before completing four years of education. There are reasons behind this: often they have to take care of animals at home, do field work or just have to stay at home managing the household.

To compensate the girls’ labour within in the family and to bring girls into school, it needs more than in-schools feeding. That’s why the “School Feeding - Initiative” provides a “take-home ration” to the girls’ families, which includes basic food items, like a sack of rice or a can of cooking oil, in exchange for sending their daughters to school.

For more information, please have look on WFP.

As in the first and second story about Ethiopia explained, the group of SAP’ Executives visited various ‘School Feeding’ projects with members of the UN WFP.

A further stop of their visit was a ‘CHILD-School’ in Hawzien, which is around 2 hours distance from Mekele. A member of the group described the location as “in the middle of nowhere” and said that she hadn`t expected a school in that deserted region. But around 200 girls and boys are visiting this school. Half of them are taught in the morning and the others in the afternoon.

Some of the children have to walk one hour or more to get to school and therefore receive the children the WFP-supported meal before school starts. Then the lesson begins: maths, languages, politics, biology and sports are important subjects on their schedules. Due to a lack of books and papers most subject matters are painted on the inner and outside school walls, as you can see in the picture below.

Another exercise the children have to do at school is the maintenance of the school garden. To water the plants, every child has to bring 1 litre of water every day. The aim of this exercise is for the school to become independent from external help and to feed the students through the ‘students-cared school garden’!

Soaring food prices are affecting virtually everybody these days. However, in countries such as Somalia, the DR Congo, and Ethiopia where the World Food Programme’s help is urgently needed the effects are most devastating. When thinking about creative new ways to tackle global problems which cannot be solved easily by national governments, Web 2.0 or social media is likely to become more and more relevant.

The initiative of the SAP Developer Network and the Business Process Expert Community Recognition Program is an appealing example. Here, contributions by the members of the community - through blogs, articles, codes samples, tutorials, videos or forum posts - are turned into donations for the World Food Programme which uses the money to fund international school nutrition programs. Of course, these contributions won’t prevent global food prices from increasing. But it shows how powerful the tool of Web 2.0 can be in the realm of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Food for A Better Life

David is 7 years old. He is attending second grade at the “Concentración Educativa El Salvador”, a small school located in El Pozón, a poor and marginal area located in Cartagena, Colombia.

David is one of Colombia´s over 3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) which makes the displacement crisis in Colombia one of the worst in the world. Most of the IDPs live in city slums where unworthy physical and social infrastructure, lack of labor opportunities and stigmatization make it extremely difficult for them to satisfy their basic needs.

In David´s case, his neighborhood is mainly inhabited by displaced people from different regions of Colombia - people from Chocó, from Antioquia, from Bolivar and from all over the country. David knows he is displaced, but he doesn’t remember the time when he and his family came to Cartagena. He says he was too small when his parents decided to flee because of the unsafe situation in his hometown Corozal. His mother is constantly looking for a job. Sometimes she finds short shifts as a maid, but this is very unusual. Most of the time she is at home taking care of David and his brother and sister. David´s father has an informal job at Cartagena´s market. He moves bulks from one truck to another. It is a hard and low-paid work. In a good day he can make two or three dollars, but normally after a 12 hours shift he barely receives one dollar.

Despite all these hardships, David is a happy child. He enjoys going to school every day. It is a place where he can play and learn where he has a lot of friends. Best of all, he and his 110 schoolmates receive a nice meal every day, thanks to the World Food Programme’s School Feeding initiative which is supported by the SAP Developer Network and the Business Process Expert Community Recognition Program.

David knows that with education everything is possible. That’s why he and his parents are proud of the fact that he is going to classes every morning.

Education is everything

Erika is 10 years old. She attends fourth grade at the Roberto García Peña Primary School, in Girón, province of Santander, Colombia.

Erika lives with her family in a very poor household. However, she says they share a beautiful house, because her mother keeps it comfortable and clean. Her father lost an arm in an accident a long time ago, even before she was born. After that, he has constantly been struggling trying to find a job.

The family used to live in a small town up north of the province. Her father owned a small farm and they had a decent and normal life. But unfortunately, armed conflict in the region forced them to move out and then they settled in Angulito neighborhood, a marginal area in Girón.

Erika goes to the school every single morning. Similar to David, she and her sister receive a daily meal provided by WFP School Feeding Programme.

“Having the lunch at school is great, because we don’t feel we have to be begging for food”, explains Erika. For that reason, the sisters can go to classes regularly, without spending precious time earning an additional income for their family’s survival.

Erika is happy to have the opportunity of learning. “Education is everything” she says. “With education you can compete, you can improve. We have a lot of needs, and probably education is the only way out of this situation. My parents are making an extraordinary effort to keep me studying, but we are sure it is worth the investment”.

After school, in the afternoon, Erika baby-sits a small child. “It is not a proper job”, she says, “but in my family we appreciate the extra income. It is not too much, but is enough to help. When I grow up I want to be a doctor, so I can help people. My father didn’t have the chance to see a good doctor when he lost his arm, and that’s why I want to be a doctor. Doctors help, and I definitely want to help.”

Erika looks nice and neat with the school uniform. She says that it was a gift from a lady her mother knows. “Being poor is one thing, but we still have dignity”, adds Erika with a big smile. “As my mom says, poverty is a state of mind. We have needs, but we are working to fulfill those needs. That’s why I am going to school!”

To give you a first-hand impression of the World Food Programme’s School Feeding initiative and its beneficial effect for the children of internally displaced families in Colombia, this podcast is very helpful: SchoolFeedingColombia.mp3.

What becomes clear is that fighting hunger and enhancing the children´s education go hand in hand - to the long-term benefit of not only the children but of the whole country.

If you would like to learn more about the political situation in Colombia and the fate of internally displaced people (IDPs), please have a look at the documents of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as well as the Brookings Institution and the International Crisis Group.

The global rise of food prices certainly made it harder for international help agencies to tackle the problem of hunger and the far-reaching negative effects for individuals and communities affected by it.

However, the World Food Programme’s updated figures about the impact of a 10€ donation (equalling not even 15$) illustrate that even such a little amount of money has a significant impact.

The contribution of 10€…

• Feeds one school child for 63 days in Laos.
• Feeds one school child for 70 days in Colombia
• Feeds one school child for 73 days in Nicaragua.
• Feeds one school child for 77 days in Ghana.
• Feeds one school child for 92 days in Kenya.
• Could feed one school child for 112 days in Ethiopia.

If these facts encourage you to donate you are most welcome to do so!

World Food Programme warns about a change for the worse

Serious droughts are exacerbating the food situation in the Horn of Africa region which is already tense due to high food and fuel prices. As a report by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) shows, more than 10 million people are affected by a drought in southern, central, western and north-eastern Ethiopia. According to the WFP’s observation, crop production is decreasing and livestock are dying. As a consequence, rural people are forced to migrate to towns for cheap labor, or to sell firewood and charcoal.

Another consequence is widespread child malnutrition which is one of the key problems in the region that needs to be tackled. That’s why support of school feeding programs is so significant for the overall development of the affected communities.

To give you an impression of how people try to cope with hardships connected to the food shortage, the story of Daniel Gedisha, an Ethiopian farmer, is a telling example. He has to deal with successive failures of seasonal rains which have destroyed his crops. Basically, the survival of his family would be threatened if it wasn’t for outside assistance - much of it provided by the WFP.