Harlem church helps Ethiopia through better coffee
Please welcome Malaka Gharib to the ONE Blog! Malaka joined the ONE New Media team a few weeks ago, and will be regularly contributing to the blog, beginning with this look at an excellent piece in the New York Times. -Chris
Coffee is the second most-traded commodity in the world and prized on a multibillion-dollar international market. Yet coffee bean farmers in Ethiopia – the official birthplace of coffee – earn an average of $1 a day, reports the New York Times in a recent article.
However, the Abyssinian Baptist Church, an African-American church in Harlem, N.Y., founded more than 200 years ago, is working to increase these farmers’ earnings. According to the Times, their international aid and development arm, the Abyssinian Fund, is on “a mission to improve the quality of the farmers’ lives by helping them improve the quality of their coffee beans.”
The Abyssinian Fund is the only nongovernmental organization in Ethiopia formed by an African-American church. It was created partly to help the congregation reconnect with its spiritual and ancestral homeland, says the Times. They are working with a co-op of 700 Ethiopian farmers in the city of Harrar.
It seems so simple, but the ability to export better-tasting coffee could help Ethiopia become more competitive on the international coffee market, creating a vital source of income for the country. Once these farmers’ incomes have increased, the Fund will add part of what they make to local development projects like schools and clinics.
This truly sounds like the start of something great. Economic growth, driven by trade and investment, is the engine that will help end poverty and increase employment and incomes.
Read more about the Abyssinian Baptist Church and their Fund in the New York Times.
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July 31, 2010 at 4:25 am
Welcome Malaka!
I think there so many under developed coffee-producing regions. Just like Ethiopia, they have excellent beans, a weather that compliments the seed but their government is overlooking their potential, and so goes with the other Asian regions. Coffee-consuming continents, which also also look after the brand are seeing a gold-mine. But this initiative from the Abyssinian Baptist Church focuses on the ‘condition’ of the coffee farmers, which sets a good example to other organizations.