CECOCAFEN Donor Trip - Nicaragua, Jan. 2008

A fundamental part of the work at Coffee Kids involves education. We occasionally coordinate point-of-origin trips with donors and members from the coffee industry to expose our members to life in the communities where we work and how Coffee Kids’ partners are making a difference in the lives of coffee-farming families.

As such, those same donors get a chance to observe and learn firsthand about our projects and how they operate. But, most importantly, visitors learn about how the projects are developed by the community, who is responsible for them, how they are evaluated and the way our partners work with each other to share information and knowledge.

During the second week of January, Coffee Kids hosted one of the most emotion-packed trips we have ever conducted. A group of 17 from Java Republic, a coffee roaster in Ireland, and a film crew accompanying them, visited our partner CECOCAFEN in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

One of the most surprising details of the trip was the way this group from Ireland identified with the people of Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, they saw many similarities to Ireland as it was just 50 years ago: a youthful nation of people who love their country and understand that hard work and constant preparation are the sources of development.

Our friends from Java Republic saw this as they met with young men and women in the CECOCAFEN scholarship program. To have the opportunity to meet the young people in this program is to learn directly from their words, to witness their strong leadership abilities, motivation and self-confidence and teamwork. The trip was a unique experience for Java Republic and for us at Coffee Kids it was another affirmation of our mission to help coffee-farming families improve their quality of life.

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items are from between 19 Jan 2008 & 23 Jan 2008.