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Coffee Kids Helping the Coffee Growing Communities of Latin America |
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Wednesday, 03 August 2005 |
As a service to the children and people of coffee who make our
wonderful cup possible each morning, we offer you the following
information. Please forward this article to your friends, other
retailers and those you know with industry relationships.
Please consider helping this long standing and pioneering
organization. Contact Coffee Kids directly to see how best you can be
of assistance given the nature of your particular business. We at Viva
Barsita feel it is time to give back and help the coffee growing
community in any way we can.
- Viva Barista Staff
Coffee Kids is playing a special role within in the industry during
this difficult period. More and more continues to be written about the
"coffee crisis", and its causes are complex. However the crisis is
analyzed, the reality on the ground in coffee growing communities is
the destruction of livelihoods, lives, traditions, families and the
loss of lands and future production capacity.
What can be done? The answers are just as complex as the problem. There
are the FairTrade, Shade Grown, and Bird Friendly initiatives. There's
the promotion of quality coffee through technical assistance programs
for growers and marketing campaigns aimed at consumers. There is the
impetus for a tiered pricing structure to recognize and pay premiums
for quality coffees. There are various kinds of certification programs
and certification standards, plus a huge debate over quality
enforcement and inspection programs. There are relationship coffees and
the encouragement of vertical alliances. There are conferences, boards,
plans, articles and papers. In all of this flood of information and
urgency to find solutions, the ones most often left out are the small
coffee growers themselves —the ones that are most impacted.
Coffee Kids has been working "on the ground" — in coffee growing
communities in Latin America for almost fifteen years. The strategy of
Coffee Kids is very simple — we listen. We listen to the people who are
the most affected Ñ the growers. What do they say? Invariably the most
common concern in coffee growing communities is the establishment of
income diversification. But what income diversification means to a
small coffee farmer may not be what it means to coffee experts in the
U.S.
Income diversification is on the "solutions agenda" of a number of
significant organizations that are dealing with the "coffee crisis".
However, income diversification is often defined as improving coffee
quality and production efficiency. The ways growers usually define it
is finding an alternative source of
income that is not related to coffee at all.
Did You Know? Farms of less than 5 hectares (approx. 12 acres) produce about 70% of the world's coffee.
It's not that growers want to stop growing coffee. If coffee growing
families can raise chickens or pigs, start a small store, mend clothes
and sew, sell tortillas or sweets, run a midwife clinic, build
furniture, make sure their kids finish school so they can find
employment not picking coffee, then the family doesn't depend on coffee
for their entire livelihood. Then when the bottom drops out of the
coffee market there's a good chance they can hang on and keep growing
coffee until the market improves. It means that they are not completely
powerless and dependent upon the vicissitudes of the coffee market.
Coffee Kids sets up strong partner relationships with in-country
not-for-profit organizations that can work with growers on a continual
basis, and sponsors projects to help coffee growers realize their
economic and social goals that usually revolves around decreasing
dependency on growing coffee. One reason these projects work is that
the ideas come from the growers themselves. Then Coffee Kids helps and
encourages communities and local organizations to diversify their own
funding and capacity until they are able to perpetuate and grow
projects on their own.
One of Coffee Kids' projects is based upon micro-lending and
micro-enterprise development as well as savings. The saving ability,
even from very poor families, demonstrates financial responsibility and
loan repayment ability. When enterprises are successful Ñ savings are
multiplied and reinvested into the loan fund — creating what is in
effect a community development bank. In Vera Cruz there are close to
2,000 people participating in a savings/lending program in 70 lending
groups. The collective amount saved by participants from impoverished
communities has surpassed a quarter of a million dollars.
A similar program is growing in Nicaragua and already involves over
1,500 family members where the economic situation is even more dire. In
Oaxaca, Coffee Kids sponsors another loan program, plus programs to
produce food for the family table through individual and community
gardens. In Guatemala, Coffee Kids has been funding a health project,
and in Costa Rica a scholarship program that allows kids from coffee
growing families to attend school and prepare for a livelihood not
dependent upon picking coffee.
Coffee Kids invites you to get involved. Coffee Kids is upgrading their
business membership package so you can show your customers you care and
that your business is part of the solution. We are developing a number
of ways that you and your customers can get involved in helping to
support Coffee Kids — so that there is a real coffee community that
reaches from the grower in Latin America that picks the coffee cherries
to the coffee consumers in the US that raises a flavorful, warm brew to
their lips; and so that everyone can feel good about the roles they
play.
Coffee Kids
(800) 334-9099
www.coffekids.org |
