Coffee Maven's Happy Birthday Give Back

This week, I celebrate my birthday! I am inviting you to celebrate with me.

This year, as my way of giving back for my birthday, I am asking my family, friends and customers to purchase our special Coffee Maven's Happy Birthday single origin coffee from the Rwanda Hingakawa Women's Co-op, and give back to these and other women of East Africa. In the interest of full disclosure, our Rwanda Hingakawa green coffee supplier, Ben Ray, is working on a way for me to give the women of the Hingakawa Co-op a gift in honor of my birthday. They are wanting to purchase the piece of land next to their washing station and build a house that they will use for coffee training and put sewing machines in it so that they have another source of income during the coffee off season. They also would like to purchase more goats as another way of supporting their families.

Rwanda Hingakawa is being released today for sale for $14 per pound. No discounts or special prices will be applied to this coffee. For the next 3 weeks, I will be setting aside $4 (or more) per pound sold to split between the women of the Hingakawa Co-op in Rwanda and the House of Hope women & girls home/shelter in Moshi, Tanzania.

Having visited neighboring Tanzania, I have a special place in my heart for the women of East Africa. When you have finished reading about these women, head on over the shop and order a pound or two. Better yet, email me at orders@lamppostcoffee.com and let me know you would like to order the coffee for more than $14 per pound! I will send you a Square Invoice via email that you can pay online. If you live in our local area, you can pay via your usual payment method.

Here's a little more about the women of the Hingakawa Co-op from Ben Ray of Green Origins.

The Abakundakawa (“Those Who Love Coffee”) Rushasi coffee cooperative, located in the northern mountain region of the district of Gakenke, is situated at an altitude of 1700-1900 meters (5577-6234 ft elevation) and encompasses five distinct zones. The coffee cooperative was formed in 2004, and due to the strong women’s movement, became the first Women’s Farmer Association of its kind in Rwanda.

Abakundakawa Coffee Cooperative is comprised of two women’s associations, Hingakawa (“Let’s Grow Coffee”) and Dakundakawa (“We Love Coffee’).

The women of Hingakawa have seen one of the darkest periods of Rwandan history in the 1990’s. Rwanda went through a devastating genocide and violence between the Hutu and Tutsi. Since this group includes women from both Hutu and Tutsi people groups, these women made a decision to make poverty their mutual enemy rather than each other. With this sentiment, they have been able to move forward and heal their community through their leadership.

After the coffee farms in Rwanda were left fallow for a time, several organizations assisted the farmers to begin producing coffee again.

Hingakawa, as the name “Let’s Grow Coffee” suggests, is more of a chant than it is a statement. It is a resolution to fight an epidemic that has crippled and claimed numerous household – poverty. These women have had enough and have come together to yell loudly, “Let’s grow coffee together and reclaim our lives!”

While violence and genocide are a part of their history, the women coffee farmers of Rwanda and the Hingakawa co-op are writing a story of courage, daring enough to plant seeds of hope at the bedrock soils underlying the layer of human skulls. They are changing history and their culture.

Coffee farmers were one of the first pillars of the Rwandan society who wholly embraced the trickle down messages of equality for women and banishment of the archaic patriarchal culture. The leadership of women is a cultural risk that is often not given enough credit as it is exemplifies courage where equality is otherwise considered taboo. This courage is partially, albeit significantly, responsible for the stitching together of hearts and minds of a once torn society. It is a courage desperately needed in re-stitching an industry tearing at the seams of sustainability, transparency and quality. The role of women in coffee can no longer be undermined, unnoticed or gone un-incentivized. They simply need to be seen and known for who they as women in coffee.

It is my pleasure as the owner of Lamppost Coffee Roasters, along with Ben Ray of Green Origins Coffee Importers, to introduce you to the brave women of the Hingakawa Women’s Coffee Cooperative. The journey of both the coffee producers as well as the product are fully traceable by a third party verifier. The details in the chain of custody tracking allow us, as importers, roasters and consumers, to recognize these incredible women and understand this coffee as special as it tastes.

(Adapted from Green Origins bio of the Rwanda Hingakawa Women's Coffee Cooperative.)