Contribute toward solving food shortages among Rohingya refugees.
​

April 2018.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP), a global international organization, Euglena about business collaboration.
"Your company has been developing social business in Bangladesh for many years, but also has ^{a track record of supporting Rohingya refugees * 1.} Would you like to collaborate with us?"

* 1: A large influx of displaced persons from Myanmar occurred in Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. About 1 million people are living in evacuation.

​As members of the Overseas Business Development Department, which conducts the mung bean project and the GENKI program in Bangladesh, promote the project to contribute to improving the lives of local farmers and Rohingya refugees, WFP Euglena Company and Grameen Euglena It is said that he acknowledged the activity of ^{* 2.}​

* 2: Euglena Co., Ltd. and the Grameen Krisi Foundation led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

​Satake, an Executive Officer in charge of the Overseas Business Development Department, told team members Ehana and Sueki that he couldn't hide his excitement.
"Mr. Ebana and Mr. Sueki. This has social significance not only for Bangladeshi farmers but also for Rohingya refugees. I want them to move toward concluding a business alliance with WFP."

"of course!"

If this happens, WFP will be the first to collaborate with a Japanese private company.
Ebana and Sueki were worried about a bigger job than they had imagined, but their expectations gradually exceeded it.

December 2017 With the support of students from the Government of Bangladesh and the University of Dhaka
Approximately 250,000 meals of nutritious special Euglena cookies were distributed at the Rohingya refugee camp.
(Left: Izumo, Right: Satake)

In Japan, Sueki, who is in charge of managing the mung bean project and the GENKI program in the Overseas Business Development Department, immediately started to move.
Euglena do if we collaborate and how much budget will be needed? We will quietly identify it with the advice of Satake et al. Of the Overseas Business Development Department.

I have been in charge of contract conclusion work before, but the scale of WFP is different.
Rome Headquarters, Bangladesh Country Office, Japan ... People in charge of each role such as budget, contract, project contents are scattered all over the world, and I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the organization.
It's hard to grasp how far things are going.

"It may seem noisy, but Euglena so that you can remember that it's Sueki."
I kept in close contact with multiple people every day and kept the attitude of getting information from myself no matter what.
I couldn't stop thinking that this contract would help Rohingya refugees.

In addition, we invited the person in charge of WFP to Bangladesh and guided them to Potoakari, where mung beans are actually cultivated, so that the business contents of the mung bean project could be communicated.

And finally February 2019.
Euglena is the first Japanese company to sign a contract as a WFP business collaboration partner.

With this business cooperation, Euglena Inc. and Grameen Euglena, along with WFP, cultivation technology transfer of mung beans for the small farmers of Bangladesh, and plans to carry out food assistance to take advantage of the E voucher for the Rohingya refugees. Euglena is expected to receive a total of US $ 2 million (about 220 million yen) in activity funds from WFP Bangladesh over a two-year period.

At the signing ceremony for business cooperation with WFP in Bangladesh (left: Izumo, right: Satake)

Meanwhile, going back in time to November 2018.
Ebana, who manages the mung bean project locally, was in Bangladesh.
It is Ebana's job to move the site in parallel with Sueki's negotiations with the WFP side.

I heard that the contract with WFP will hopefully be around February 2019, but mung bean planting (sowing) will also start in February.
In order to attract new farmers who grow mung beans through WFP's business collaboration, it was necessary to start calling out to the farmers at this time.

"We will share the technique of mung bean cultivation. Grameen Euglena will definitely buy the mung beans you made, so can you make mung beans together?"

With the cooperation of the local Ministry of Agriculture (DAE), we held a farmer's meeting in the village to gather farmers steadily, and managed to conclude a contract with 2,000 farmers when the business cooperation was concluded in February 2019.

However, Ebana had a problem that had to be solved further.
It means that we have to prepare a route to provide the produced mung beans to Rohingya refugees.

In this business alliance, it is the responsibility of the six local traders who are entrusted with the operation of the shops (e-voucher shops) in the refugee camps by WFP to actually deliver the mung beans to Rohingya refugees. However, at the time of the contract signing in February, none of the companies knew the trader's contact information yet.
It was early May 2019 that I was able to negotiate with WFP over and over again from the beginning of this case and ask for the contact information of the trader. It was the time when Grameen Euglena was buying the planted mung beans from farmers.

Within a week of that, Ebana and Euglena 's colleagues worked together to negotiate with traders.
Visited all trader headquarters scattered in Bangladesh and talked about the cooperation model of mung bean sales. At the same time, each trader groped for the information needed to sell mung beans, as to which refugee camp they were running and what they were selling in what quantity.

Finally, in July 2019, test sales of mung beans began at the Rohingya refugee camp.
This mung bean is, of course, a mung bean cultivated locally by giving cultivation guidance to contract farmers in Bangladesh.

Mung beans are being sold at the Rohingya refugee camp
We sell mung beans that have been thin-skinned for easy cooking (the contents are yellow when the mung beans are thin-skinned).

The Cox's Bazar in the southeastern part of Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar, continues to experience a large influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, and about 1 million people continue to live in evacuation.

A Rohingya refugee said when the test sale started.
"I'm happy to eat mung beans like I did before I evacuated here."

Sueki and Ebana talk.
"This business collaboration is not just a social contribution activity, Euglena, and local traders to do what they should be doing as neighbors. When will the fundamental solution to the Rohingya refugee problem be? In the unclear situation, I would like to create a sustainable model through this business collaboration. "

Members of the Overseas Business Development Department continue to move toward a better future for the world today.

■ Click here for details on the mung bean project
https://www.euglena.jp/businessrd/socialbusiness/grameen/

Posted in September 2019