From mid-June 2019, TMBD, with cooperation from euglena Co., Ltd, a Japanese company engaged in sales of food and cosmetic products mainly using microalga euglena, started distributing euglena cookies which contains nutrients needed by children, to some 1,000 students attending three schools in the vicinity of the plant, where majority of the children of the company’s employees attend, six days a week.
The three schools to which the cookies are being distributed are the Kashor Bidda Niketon School (kindergarten to 10th grade, 395 students), Haji Ismail Hossain Public School (kindergarten to 6th grade, 165 students), and the Zobaida Aziz Model School (kindergarten to 10th grade, 395 students). More than half of the children of the company’s 4,000 employees study at these schools.
Malnutrition, especially in growing children, is a serious problem in Bangladesh, which has many economically disadvantaged households and where the staple food of curry made with few ingredients makes it difficult for children to take in all the necessary nutrients.
Mymensingh, where the company is located, is some 60km north of Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka and is an area lined with garment factories of many foreign companies. About 40% of the employees are women and they have to leave home early as the work at the factories start at 8 a.m., because of which many children go to school without lunch box despite there being no lunch provided by the schools.
TMBD considers it a social responsibility of the company to take care of not only its employees but also their families and the local community, and has been donating stationery and blankets to schools in the vicinity of its factory. We were also concerned about undernutrition and underdevelopment of children and had been searching what we can do to help. That is when we learned of the Euglena GENKI Program in Bangladesh by euglena Co., Ltd. and TMBD Managing Director Masahiro Shindo requested the Bangladesh office of euglena for cooperation and began distributing the cookies. TMBD pays part of the cost of the cookies and distributes them to the three local schools.
Ever since the Euglena GENKI Program began in April 2014, we have been distributing nutrient-rich euglena cookies to children in Bangladesh for free. Euglena contains 59 kinds of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals in a balanced manner and the six pieces of cookies distributed as one meal substitutes daily requirement of the nutrients that are especially lacking in children in Bangladesh.
We hope that the health of the children, who will play important roles in the future of Bangladesh, will improve by constantly eating the euglena cookies in school meals and that they will grow strong both mentally and physically. At the same time, we hope it would ease the minds of their parents, who are our employees, and will enable them to continue working at our company.
