Derk Möller Helps Poor Families In Paraguay 

The experience leaves a profound impression. "Most Europeans can hardly conceive of the poverty most rural people here in Paraguay live in," says Derk Möller, responsible for Customer Relations Management, Loyalty & Reward Solutions at Arvato. He recently witnessed the repercussions that long periods of rainfall can have for people in remote rural areas. When it rains continuously for days, as happens frequently, "the roads are not paved, so some of them become impassable and contact to the outside world breaks off. People can’t get anything to eat and starve." Providing a long-term remedy to this solution is part of the reason an international aid agency has been working in Paraguay since 1995. And since the weekend before last, Möller has been helping it. First he flew from Munich to the Paraguayan capital of Asunción, from where he traveled to several regions in the South American country, which is about the size of Germany and Switzerland combined. Derk Möller is the second of three Bertelsmann managers selected at the Management Meeting 2010 to support an aid project operated by Bertelsmann’s partner.

As Ian McClelland did before him in Indonesia, Möller is now getting to know the living conditions in a country where many people live below the poverty line – according to the aid agency’s data, the figure is around 50 percent in Paraguay. Nine percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day for buying the necessities of life. The children suffer in particular: Malnutrition has stunted the physical development of ten percent of girls and boys. Lack of iodine and iron also results in serious and long-term health problems – among other things, at school the children also find it difficult to concentrate and learn.

This is why the aid agency has set out to ensure a healthy diet for children through the cultivation of organic vegetables in private and school gardens. "The main project, which is what I am here for, is called, ‘food security,'" says Möller. "In many communities this includes training families, children and teachers in schools how to create their own fruit and vegetable gardens, how to keep chickens and goats, and how to prepare healthy food from all this," explains the Arvato Manager. "My job includes helping with the training and the preparation of meals right in the villages," says Möller, who by the end of his stay will have visited approximately 30 families and schools at different locations. "For instance, in one village we are planning to make a first visit to a market at which the families plan to sell part of their harvest." Because they have never done this before, this is obviously a great challenge. "Secondly, on my orientation day at the  head office in Asunción, I was asked to write a final report about how the project is actually implemented locally and what potential for optimization it offers."

Möller is pleased to see that the aid agency’s support makes it possible to help people locally in many ways. "They are given a gainful occupation, as work needs to be done in the garden every day. They also acquire new skills that will be of long-term use to them in later life." But most importantly, the people are less dependent on supplies from distant cities – which often don’t get through to them because of poor infrastructure, or are simply too expensive. "In future they will find much of their food right outside their front door," says Möller.

All of this also eliminates the problem under-nourishment and malnutrition. "The children get essential vitamins and roughage from the vegetables and fruit , which makes them better able to keep up at school, which in turn opens up opportunities later on," says Möller, describing the long chain of cause and effect of dependencies that the aid agency wants to have a positive impact on.

"But the most important thing is that while the agency initiates and supports the projects, the families – and especially the mothers – have to work hard themselves every day in the gardens," said Möller. And this has other consequences for the people, as he has noticed during his visits to villages and schools: "Sowing and reaping together, cooking and eating together, as they have been able to do more often in recent times, enormously strengthens the sense of community," says Möller. "This community is then better able to tackle other challenges as well – and coping with those helps to further improve everyone’s situation.”

"I was personally very moved that each community I visited with the supervisors, came up with a special welcome for us," says Möller. "For example, when we arrived at Arroyito school near Caaguazu in southeastern Paraguay, all the students and teachers thanked us for our support with specially rehearsed songs. These sounds and images will remain in my memory all my life."