Nicaragua 2013

Join us on our 2013 delegation to meet Las Diosas at La FEM women’s cooperatives in Esteli, Nicaragua!

January 28th-February 4th, 2013 Cost: $900

(Cost includes all in country transportation, two meals a day, lodging, translation and interpretation services, guides and other activities. Price does not include airfare)     

About Just Coffee

Just Coffee Cooperative is a worker-owned 100% fair trade coffee roaster dedicated to creating and expanding a model of trade based on sustainable business practices, transparency, equality, and human dignity. We strive to build long-term relationships with small-scale coffee growers to bring you a truly incredible cup of coffee.  By bringing people back into the equation, we see a model based on real fair trade as a means to change global social and economic inequality between countries in the global north and the global south.

About Our Delegations

Because our cooperative mission is based on direct relationships with the producers that grow the coffee we roast, Just Coffee organizes delegations to grower cooperatives in Latin America several times a year.  These delegations give Just Coffee costumers, coffee drinkers, travelers, students, curious souls, or other interested folks a look into what goes on behind fair trade and the long process of coffee from the seedling to your cup. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss topics related to the larger importance of participating in cooperatives and fair trade through face-to-face conversations with the farmers themselves. It also gives producers a chance to hear directly from consumers about the end results of the coffee they grow, bringing a human face to this whole system.  Participants will learn about benefits as well as challenges that still exist within fair trade, women’s empowerment, organic agriculture, food security, globalization, cultural diversity, politics, history, current events, environmental issues, social movements, and more. Throughout our stay, we will travel to coffee growing communities, work on coffee farms, participate in cultural exchanges, share meals with and visit producers in their homes, visit local markets, eat typical food, and explore the surrounding area.                

About la FEM

La Fundacion Entre Mujeres is a well organized all-women’s feminist NGO in northern Nicaragua that promotes ideological, economic, and political empowerment of rural women through projects such as formal and informal educational programs, reproductive rights, women’s health clinics, domestic violence support, access to land, gender workshops and product diversification through organic agriculture trainings.  All projects are carried out under a focus of sustainable economic development for the adults and youth that these programs reach. Through such programs, women from the rural communities are able to participate and be real actors in transforming their own realities, making decisions in the development politics carried out by la FEM. As part of the larger Nicaraguan Feminist movement, La FEM uses coffee as a means of promoting economic equality for the women organized in each of their six cooperatives.

Itinerary includes:

• Two nights in coffee growing communities, meeting farmers and experiencing daily life on the farm

• Harvesting coffee

• Following the coffee process from the seed to cup

• Learning about FEM's organization of a new secondary level cooperative

• Hands on experience in one of the regions that has been affected by climate change and learning about efforts to rebuild their community

• Overnight in Miraflor, a nearby Ecological Reserve (hiking, orchids, waterfalls…!)

For more information or to sign up for this delegation please contact Julia Baumgartner at julia (at) justcoffee (dot) coop