SIGN UP FOR EMAILSOur Impact
IMPACT GOALS IN NICARAGUA
- Create 1,000 year-round jobs in coffee farms
- Eliminate seasonal hunger in coffee communities
- Boost rural education and student retention
80 percent
of coffee workers only have jobs for 3-4 months per year
The coffee bean harvest season only goes from December to March.
During this period, the workers are fully employed and everyone is making ends meet.
However, as soon as the harvest season is done, 80% of the workers migrate to the city to seek other jobs, travel to other countries for labour jobs, and in some cases, cannot find work until the next harvest season.
3 months
of seasonal hunger per year in coffee-growing communities
With seasonal work, comes seasonal income. This forces families to ration their income for the entire year and make the stretch throughout the off-season. On average, families experience 5 months of hunger per year due to this challenging situation.
12 years-old
is the average age when kids leave school to pursue odd jobs
Due to the lack of stable income and the pressure of hunger on young families, kids usually abandon their academic careers at the age of 12 years old to pursue odd jobs and create income to help support the family.
By providing year-round work, we can let the parents have more work and income, and this releases pressure on children to produce income of their own. This is the very harsh reality of the children living on coffee farms.
MEET GERALD DAVID
When we met him, he told us the story of how he lost the bottom half of his right leg in a coffee milling machine. Since then, he’s had an even harder time finding consistent work due to his unfortunate disability. Not only was this hard on him, but also his young son, who he still struggles to feed.
He told us that everyone in the region is hungry, and they’re all looking for a better solution. Like most coffee farmers, he was astonished when we told him that we’re harvesting leaves. We proposed that he help us harvest leaves for a few days, and on the last day, we took this photo.
It’s stories like these that motivate us to revolutionize the industry for the better. So many of these socioeconomic issues can mitigated and avoided if we harvest the leaf, and fortunately, the leaf makes a delicious and healthy tea.
STRIVING FOR MORE CONSISTENT EDUCATION
If we can create a more consistent environment for children to study, we can help this generation and the next to create their own paths and holistically develop coffee regions, and not just have a temporary fix.
