If you’ve been with us all year (and what a year it has been), you’ll know that our first funded project was in Brazil, working with the Women in Coffee, if you haven’t already, you should checkout our first blog.
Matão Women in Coffee Project – Update
Mataõ, women in coffee
Officially founded by 12 women of the community, the Mataõ women in coffee group has since grown to 24, all of whom are 3rd and 4th generation coffee farmers, all seeking some independence from a what has traditionally been a very patriarchal society.
Working together in their close-knit society, these women control everything from harvesting, processing and even selling of their specialty coffee products.
Strength in numbers
Close neighbours, friends, and cousins Maria and Venessa are the recipients of the first two Sourced drying beds, taking the total within the community total to 7, with a goal to reach a total of 24
This does not just impact Maria and Venessa, the community work together to help each other with the workload and pooling together for communal infrastructure like their wet and dry mills. In Addition to the 7 beds, by working together, the Mataõ Women in coffee have already funded a local wet mill.
All of their hard work and planning is starting to pay off, with them taking out a number of coffee producing awards over the last few years, which is incredible when you consider that many of these ladies hadn’t even had a chance to taste their coffee, even a few years ago.
The Project
Materials are prepared, utilizing sustainably using timer from the surrounding land.
The team meet to plan out the construction.
The upright support posts are cemented into the foundation.
The external frame takes shape.
The horizontal supports are constructed, ready to support the beds.
A black mesh material is used for air flow, and to capture as much of the suns energery as possible.
The mesh is fitted tightly, to ensure there are now dips or sags for moisture to gather.
Now that the beds are ready, they can finaly be used to dry their first batch of coffee.
Now that the frames are complete, the covers are fixed into place to protect the coffee from the heavy rains of the wet season.
What is next?
Well, we’re well on our way to funding two more beds, as of today we have over 2/3rds of the funds needed already raised, and every time you purchase one of our products, you are directly helping us get to the next goal.
When we hit this goal, we’re going to build another two beds, at two more farms.
But we’re not finished there, we also plan to support the Mataõ Women in Coffee project with the funding of a coffee roaster, allowing them to produce their coffee for wholesale locally!
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