by Marybelle Stryk

23 November 2002

Bonn, Germany: Three food technology specialists from Kraft Foods, with logistical support from United Nations Volunteers (UNV), have flown to Guinea in West Africa to teach young women candy-making techniques to help finance their non-profit vocational school in the capital Conakry.

Employees from Kraft Foods North America, Ruth Yost and Christianita Yusuf, and Eric Meguennache from the International office in Germany, took up their assignments under the UNV-managed United Nations Short-term Advisory Resources (UNISTAR).

UNISTAR gives corporate employees a chance to share their skills and knowledge to help accomplish development projects in poor countries and emerging economies. UN Volunteers serving on UNISTAR missions are highly qualified experts and have solid professional experience. They are motivated by a desire to help, and are being trained to effectively communicate and organize projects in unfamiliar cultures.

This year, Kraft Foods sent employees on voluntary missions to The Gambia, Mongolia, Honduras, St. Lucia, Viet Nam and Guinea, where they helped enhance skills in growing coffee, making jams and jellies, as well as processing rice-based meals, dairy, sugar confectionery, peanuts and cashews.

In Guinea, the UNV-Kraft volunteers helped students of Le Foyer de la Jeune Fille create new varieties of sweets and market these products to enable the school to continue its services to its underprivileged students.

Le Foyer is a non-profit learning centre that teaches 12- to 20-year-old women reading, writing, basic mathematics, French, personal hygiene, childcare, sex education as well as basic skills in embroidery, cooking and sewing.

"My first impression (with the students) was that they were ready to learn, exactly the quality we needed to help them," says Yost, Project Leader and UNISTAR coordinator at Kraft.

The UNV-Kraft volunteers helped 11 students acquire proper kitchen facilities, enabling them to create assorted candies with locally available fruits and spices, such as Kandinji or white prunes, ginger, hibiscus, coconut and mango. They taught them step by step procedures in candy-making -- from reading weighing scales and thermometers, to selecting the right fruits and ingredients. The students also learned packaging, labeling and marketing techniques.

Within two weeks, the young women were able to prepare dried fruits, sugar-covered nuts, candied citrus peels, and peanut brittle, to name a few of the products.

"They are now selling to several government offices and will start offering them to restaurants," says Yost. "Now that is success."

The most rewarding aspect, though, is not monetary. "The mission changed me. It really motivated me to share my knowledge," says Yusuf, a scientist specializing in soft candy-making. Yost adds, "What we considered simple can make a world of difference to someone in need, and that is where I want to be." "My dream of becoming a teacher became a reality during this. It is an unforgettable experience," Meguennache says.

To continue their work, Kraft employees are now investigating how another UNV-managed programme -- the NetAid Online Volunteering service -- might help them extend their support to Le Foyer students.

"If we want to continue communicating with the Le Foyer students, we would literally be at a lost for words since we cannot speak French, and vice-versa. We are finding out if NetAid could help us with the translations," says Yost.

NetAid, an independent organization based in New York, was founded by Cisco Systems and UNDP in 1999. The programme enables experts from anywhere in world to help organizations from developing countries in areas of translations, web design, research, proposal writing, or any service that could be done through computer networks.

Kraft Foods markets some of the world's known brands such as Kraft cheese, Maxwell House, Jacobs coffees and Milka chocolate in more than 145 countries.