Coffee Kids
It’s 8 a.m.—Do You Know Where Your Coffee Came From??
As you enjoy your morning cup of coffee, do you ever wonder where that brown elixir came from? How many hands, how many lives were involved in the effort to bring it to you?
Trade in coffee is worth almost $80 billion a year. The coffee farmers forming the base of the industry earn as little as 4 cents per pound for coffee they pick by hand. Throughout the world, over 25 million families are completely dependent on coffee as their only source of income.
In the coffee world, fair trade, organic, shade-grown and other premiums have given consumers the chance to pay a fairer price for coffee . While this is a step in the right direction, these market-driven solutions don’t address the root cause of poverty in coffee-farming communities: monoculture and the reliance on a single, seasonal crop for survival.
Coffee Kids is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping coffee-farming families improve the quality of their lives. Coffee Kids work is not related to the production or marketing of coffee, but focuses on creating sustainable alternatives that will allow farmers and their families to provide income throughout the year—not just during the coffee harvest.
By listening to coffee-farming families identify and prioritize problems that are the most pressing to them, Coffee Kids helps create strategies and implement projects based on the farmer’s own values and culture. These projects focus on economic diversification, health care and nutrition, and education, and work with local non-profits on a grassroots level. Partner organizations provide hands-on training and technical skills to implement community projects. These partnerships are based on trust, transparency and a deep respect for cultural values and community priorities.
Coffee Kids focuses on the strengths inherent in coffee-farming communities, encouraging their ability to address the chronic poverty they face everyday. Currently, Coffee Kids works with 12 partners in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru.
For more information on Coffee Kids and how you can help coffee-farming families improve the quality of their lives, please visit www.coffeekids.org or send an e-mail to info@coffeekids.org.
