Irma Olivas is a 38 year old woman from comunidad Los Llanos in northern Nicaragua. She is a single mother of 2 and a coffee producer, organized under her community’s cooperative COPEMUJER and the larger umbrella organization La FEM. She shares her story of empowerment and how her life has changed as a result of being organized with other women like her.

Before her involvement with la FEM, she worked on a larger coffee plantation, making little money and working long days without food.  She had an abusive husband who often went off with other women. “I put up with too much,” she says, “I was dumb.” And then La fundacion entre mujeres came along, supporting women in getting organized, putting together trainings on organic agriculture, gender, and education, providing health clinics, and legal aid. “They changed my life and opened me up to a whole new reality.” Like many Nicas, her husband took off to Costa Rica in seach of better employment opportunities.  “He told me to come with him, but I told him no.  What have you ever done for me? I would ask him. Going to Costa Rica will do nothing for me.  This organization has done everything that you have not. I now have land, a cow, credit to improve my land, and support groups.  Here I can learn to empower myself. It serves me better here, so I’m choosing la FEM over you,” she tells us. And it has made all the difference. “Thanks to La FEM, we are able to produce 100% organic coffee and export it to Just Coffee at a fair price, much better than any other producers in the country.  It hasn’t been easy, but I am so thankful for what they have done for us.  We now can buy school supplies for our kids, pay for our health and food.  I fixed up my kitchen and my teeth and am saving money to send my kids to school. And through these opportunities I am able to not only empower myself, but to empower other women by hiring them to help on my land and offering them a better wage than they would get elsewhere. When I feel sad, I think about how far we have come and what we have accomplished. And I feel proud.”