On the 21st of April 2020 Seibo Japan held an online Directors Meeting. Being online conversely facilitated the participation of overseas directors & thus enabled a wide exchange of views & opinions as to how Seibo can achieve its stated mission of feeding every hungry child a hot meal at school.
Online Discussion Overview
Despite having grown to the ripe age of 4 we are still far from our stated aim of feeding every hungry child a hot meal at school. The scale of the challenge ahead is vast but present times considered we must certainly forge ahead.
In the year gone by thanks to the generosity of donors & corporate charity partners we managed to provide hot meals for almost 15,000 children daily in Malawi & Japan. We have endeavoured to update our support base by means of a quarterly newsletter past issues which can be accessed here.
Seibo’s Corporate Partners
Seibo is reliant on the success of our corporate charity partners & Japanese donors for continued financial support. In particular we noted the importance of the UK-based Mobell group to Seibo’s activities.Their global spread of social enterprises committed to using their profits for charitable purposes have been our main source of donation income.
With the changes affected upon business due to the spread of COVID-19 the Directors took a look at the Mobell charity business portfolio to help identify any areas where we could focus our efforts whilst international travel is on ice.
Warm Hearts Coffee Club
While our base of regular subscribers in Japan is still quite low more can be done. Recent promotional activities include distributing coffee samples at the screening of the Malawi-inspired movie- “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”- see here for details. Issues related to the coffee site itself were addressed by some directors and a site audit will be made with the intention of improving the loading speed of pages, etc.
Japanese After-School Feeding
Since May 2019 Seibo have been supporting an existing after-schools programme catering for vulnerable Japanese children. As we have in principle agreed to continue this support for another financial year we hope to continue including updates in our regular newsletters. Prior to Seibo’s intervention the daily budget for food-stuffs was approx. 2,000 yen which was used to feed upwards of 5 x children and university student volunteers who assist with homework. The budget has since been expanded to 5,000 yen and a more balanced, nutritious meal is being served. Click here for the most recent post on the Seibo site.
Further Online Collaboration
A introductory workshop was delivered to the Board by one of the Directors on the concept
of ‘Design Thinking’ which helped to focus the conversation on how to further meet the needs of donors.
A follow-up training workshop is planned for the Seibo Board over the coming weeks.
Malawi & COVID-19
While the purpose of the AGM was to reflect on the year gone by the entire Board
was acutely aware that the prospects of Malawi being affected by COVID-19 could be catastrophic.
While information is still scarce we do know that an indefinite lockdown is in place and schools have been closed since the 23rd of March. Seibo in Malawi have implemented home-feeding for the most vulnerable nursery-age children with food parcels and soap/disinfectant bars being distributed. Meanwhile plans are being made with Malawi’s Department of Education, Science & Technology to distribute food parcels from food stored at primary schools that are currently closed.
It is our shared hope and prayer that Malawi will come through this period unharmed and we
can get back to feeding the future as envisaged in the Seibo mission.