Last week we were able to distribute eyeglasses and supportive devices to members of our staff through the support of the Fairtrade Dignified Opportunities Nurtured through Trade & Sustainability program (DONUTS program).

The objectives of this 4-year program are gender equality, youth, and vulnerable groups and especially persons with disabilities. Besides that, the program aims to strengthen the capacities of the Fairtrade Producers Organizations (POs) and the trade unions. The program is funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

At Sher Ethiopia, inclusion of employees with disabilities has always been a priority. Therefore, we are grateful that the DONUTS program has supported 108 disabled employees with devices.

In this project Sher Ethiopia and Fairtrade Africa teamed up with Gerarbet Rehabilitation Association. This association carried out the measurements for the beneficiaries to determine the kind of device required and the proper fitting of the devices. These include a.o. tricycles, crutches, artificial limbs, eyeglasses, and hearing devices.

We are happy to see that 108 employees can live and work more comfortably. A big thank you to our respected partners!

September 16 is World Clean Up Day where people around the world unite and join forces to clean up litter and waste from the environment. At Sher, every three months we actively contribute by cleaning the surrounding environments of our farms in Adami Tulu and Koka. In Ziway we join forces with our neighboring farms. Over 100 Sher-employees participate in these cleaning activities.

Litter is not only unpleasant to look at; eventually, it will pollute the environment and make its way to rivers, lakes, and the oceans, endangering animals and harming the planet and our health.

We would like to thank our devoted employees and volunteers for not only cleaning up once a year but every quarter. We call on everyone to join forces on September 16.

The Green Legacy Initiative, which aims at curbing the effects of climate change and deforestation, was launched in May 2021. So far 3.7 billion seedlings have been planted across Ethiopia. Every year we contribute to the campaign. In July our colleagues helped to plant over 46.000 seedlings on Worja & Kamo Gerbi Hill. This was a great collaboration between the local administration offices, the local investors, and the community members.

Besides planting seedlings at the preserved areas, we also planted 300 fruit bearing trees and 1.000 indigenous seedlings at our 4 Sher School compounds. We would like to thank all colleagues and volunteers that participated in these planting initiatives.

With a generous gift of Dutch Flower Foundation we were able to establish two brand new E-learning centers at the Sher High-school in Ziway.

Camara Education that provided 50 new computers and two servers, supplies computers to schools and train teachers, often in rural and far-flung parts of Ethiopia. They help to create a secure and dust-free environment for a computer classroom. Their trainers visited the school for a week, training 26 teachers in the use of computers in the curriculum and giving advice on basic maintenance.

Camara’s computers run on the Ubuntu open-source operating system. They are pre-loaded with a range of educational software, from simple games to specialized Camara Learning Studio resources for math and science. All computers are also loaded with an offline version of Wikipedia, creating an extraordinary learning resource for schools with limited internet connections. And most important of all, the computers are installed with PDFs of Ministry of Education textbooks covering the entire school curriculum. Textbooks are in very short supply in many of Ethiopia’s 40,000 schools, so this alone is a crucial resource.

Dutch Flower Foundation (DFF) aims to improve the living conditions and well-being of people in need and in particular children. This will focus on countries where Dutch Flower Group (DFG) companies are active with an emphasis on connected community projects. Through the activities of DFF, DFG gives substance to its responsibility for the world in which we live.

Hundreds of students will benefit from this according to Sher School director mr. Negusse Aga: ‘Computer-skills are extremely important for our students. Sher-schools have an excellent reputation in Ethiopia. Almost all the students qualify to attend universities. New computers enable us to uphold our reputation and open the digital world to our students’.

Afriflora operates three farms in Ethiopia under the name Sher Ethiopia. In the Sher schools 6800 children ranging from Kindergarten to Highschool get free education.

On behalf of the students and teachers we would like to sincerely thank DFF and Camara for their highly appreciated contribution in this project.

On Saturday May 20 the tournament of Group C of the Ethiopian Higher League ended. For two months 13 teams from all over Ethiopia competed to win the trophy and a promotion to the Ethiopian premier league. The final match was between Yeka Kifleketema from Addis Abeba and Habericho from the south region of Hadiya Zone. After an exciting game Habericho won by 1-0. We congratulate the winners, and we are happy to see that a great number of spectators and fans watched so many exciting games in our stadium.

At the end of the program, Sher Ethiopia has been awarded a certificate of appreciation by the Ethiopian Football Federation for its contribution to the success of the program.

On Saturday May 20 we hosted a group of enthusiastic Horticulture and Plant Science students and teachers from Hawassa University. After welcoming, a brief introduction about the farm activities was given and also the company’s CSR activities were explained. Then a field visit was carried out to the greenhouses, grading, wetland and composting area.

It was a good opportunity for us to show the practical side of horticulture to a group that showed great interest in the environmental and social practices of the company. At the end, the participants declared that they were impressed with Sher Ethiopia’s development on social services and environmental protection.

We hope these students will play an important role in building a bright future for the horticulture sector in Ethiopia and we would like to thank EHPEA for planning and organizing this event.

Over the past year the Borena zone has been affected by severe drought which led to crop failures and death of livestock. A nationwide campaign has started to support the people in Borena. Last week, Sher Ethiopia has donated 13 tons of maize flour. On Friday April 7 the food was handed over to Batu/Ziway Mayor`s office at the presence of some other sector office representatives who promised to send the food to the drought affected regions as soon as possible.

From March 21-24 Fairtrade certified farms celebrated International Women’s Day together at the Dukunde Kawa Musasa coffee farm in Kigali, Rwanda. Participants came from Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia. On behalf of Sher, Hilina Mekonnen participated.

The group visited several coops such as the Dukunde Kawa Musasa coffee farm close to Kigali. Founded in 2003, this coop expanded from 300 coffee growers to more than 2,000. Eighty percent of Dukunde Kawa’s members are women. They market their coffee as ‘women-grown coffee’. Fairtrade premium goes toward child education and improvements that directly support the community such as a sewing association that produces re-usable sanitary pads for the local market. At Kagera Co-operative Union (KCU) women and youth are trained on soap production and beekeeping.

Enforcing the role and position of women in our farms and communities is an important goal in our strive for a diverse and inclusive workforce. We will continue to offer various programs and training courses to our staff and community members that contribute to this goal.

We want to thank Fairtrade for giving the opportunity to learn from other farms in an international setting.

Recently, for the second time the Gerrit and Nel Barnhoorn Scholarships have been awarded to four Sher-school graduates. The Barnhoorn family are the founders of Sher Ethiopia and its schools. Each year 4 students are granted a scholarship that helps them to cover a large part of their study-expenses and cost of living at a university of their choice in Ethiopia. The main goal of the scholarship is to help high achieving students with disadvantaged backgrounds.

Students Taha Abu Jula, Temesgen, Solomon Sitota, Dejene Ijaro Naneso and Hana Belayhun Dilnesaw received their prizes from John Barnhoorn, son of Gerrit and Nel Barnhoorn. On behalf of his family, he congratulated the winners and thanked the Sher School teachers and supporting staff for their hard work over the past 16 years.

From all graduates, 8 students were nominated for a scholarship of whom 4 were selected. The others received a laptop. The ceremony took place in the presence of the students’ families, Sher Ethiopia managers, community elders, Sher School staff, the parents committee and officials from the Education Office and the Woreda Administration.

We thank Mr. and Mrs. Barnhoorn for their unwavering support for the Sher Schools and Hospital over the years and we are extremely proud of these students as they are a true example of the positive impact that Sher Ethiopia has on the community in Ziway and surrounding areas. We wish all our graduated students a bright future, wherever it may take them.

Sher schools in Ethiopia accommodate over 6800 students at three locations. Approximately 400 children – starting at the age of 4 – are admitted to Sher schools every year. Admission takes place on a 50-50 basis, with an equal split between the children of employees and children from the local community.

We look back with great pleasure on three exciting exhibition days at the 8th edition of the HortiFlora Expo in Addis Ababa last week. The exhibition was opened by Dr. Girma Amente, Minister of Agriculture with Mr. Mesfin Tasew, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, as guest of honor.

For us, the exhibition is a great opportunity to talk to many relations and interested parties about our farms and the way in which we sustainably produce our beautiful roses. And about our many CSR projects, including the initiative in which dried water hyacinth is used by local women to braid all kinds of products.

This year the theme was about ‘Ensuring Sustainability’ and we are proud of the awards we received from EHPEA (Gold certificate Code of Conduct) and MPS (Hortifootprint Calculator).

All in all, a successful fair, where we would like to thank EHPEA for the splendid organization and all visitors for their interest.