Coffee growers report on earthquake relief
July 15, 2010
A group of subsistence coffee farmers in Baradères, Haiti, spent one-fourth of their 2009 earnings to provide aid to people who fled to the rural area after the earthquake.
The coffee farmers' association, Kafe Devlopman Baradè (KDB) or Coffee Development of Baradères, reports that it spent a total of $4,700 earlier this year on a KDB earthquake relief program for Baradères.
That total included $1,230 from KDB's profits from sales of fair-trade-plus Kafe Lespwa coffee in the United States. The other $3,470 came from donations to Just Haiti that the nonprofit brought to Haiti in mid-February.
KDB designed the program and reported spending the funds as shown in the table.
The $1,230 from KDB represented 24 percent of the association's profit from U.S. sales of Kafe Lespwa coffee harvested during the 2008-2009 growing season. In addition to the $3,470 transferred to KDB in February, Just Haiti had earlier spent $300 so that people who were displaced by the quake could travel to family in Baradères.
KDB – Just Haiti Earthquake Relief Program for Baradères |
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Food assistance to 72 families who took in quake victims |
$2,337 |
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Health care to 15 people injured in the quake |
577 |
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Tuition for 40 students who arrived after the earthquake |
1,538 |
||
Repairs to three quake-damaged homes |
231 |
||
Administrative cost |
17 |
||
TOTAL |
$4,700 |
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Baradères is about 70 miles from the epicenter of the January 12 quake. Relatively few homes were seriously damaged. But thousands of people, including many with injuries, fled to Baradères. In addition to increasing the needs for food and medical care, most new arrivals were unable to pay to send their children to school. KDB's program addressed these needs within the group’s capacity.
After mid-February trip, Just Haiti received about $3,000 in additional donations for earthquake relief.
That money will now be used for a program developed by KDB to purchase improved, conventionally bred, high-yield corn and bean seed. KDB will distribute the seed for planting this summer to 50 subsistence farm families in the area. Because of the large population increase resulting from the earthquake, the Baradères area needs to expand sustainable food production to the extent possible, and this will help in that effort.
Buying Kafe Lespwa—a fair-trade-plus, shade-grown, organic Arabica coffee—remains an excellent way to support the sustainable reinvigoration of the Baradères economy.
"Fair-trade-plus" means that the KDB farmers are paid the full fair-trade price up front for their green coffee beans, and all profits from the sale of roast Kafe Lespwa go to the association. You can buy Kafe Lespwa online here.
Just Haiti works to alleviate poverty, hunger, violence, illiteracy and disease in Haiti by fostering small-business development, education programs, employment opportunity, infrastructure improvement and environmental quality. Just Haiti is a Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization.
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