Keswick and District Fairtrade: Our association with Choche, Ethiopia

So far members of the Keswick Fair Trade Campaign Committee have made three visits to Choche, a village community in the south of Ethiopia in the region of Oromia, the legendary birthplace of coffee.  A Link is now being developed in order to create a partnership with the community through friendship and solidarity and a process of communication in the knowledge that we are part of a broader global movement through Fairtrade. We hope that this will grow as an increased level of understanding of our respective communities is made possible.  In January and October  2006 and again in October 2007 members went to Ethiopia and heard for themselves what a difference there has been in the lives of the people in Choche.  They spent some time talking to one of them, Mulugeta Ababa who, with his wife and six children, farms coffee and maize on one and half hectares.  All except the youngest child help on the farm after school and during the holidays, in an attempt to maximize the return from the small crop on which they depend for the year’s income.   Mulugeta reminded us of the benefits that have been generated by the cooperative which enable him to sell his coffee into the Fairtrade market.   There is extra income for the family, extra classrooms at the school, potable water from the protected spring and the start of a new health post just outside the village.  When the coffee price collapsed catastrophically in 2001/02 this family had to sell their three cows to survive. Photographs and material were gathered to record the lives of farmers in the Oromia region.  This will  enable the campaign to use this and  promote Fairtrade by raising awareness and by bringing alive the story of the injustices associated with the world coffee trade.   This is a vital part of our campaign which we do through talks and presentations to schools, societies, clubs, churches and other campaigning groups. There has been some exciting news since the last visit to Choche in October 2007.  The prospect of some visitors from Choche coming to Keswick is now a firm proposal and plans are being laid for their arrival.  Bearing in mind that our purpose in developing the Link is: ‘To develop a partnership with the community of Choche through friendship and solidarity…’, it was one of the objectives of the Oct 2007 visit to Ethiopia to do all we could to arrange for at least two people to come to Cumbria at the earliest opportunity.   Confirmation that this will now happen, provided the necessary paperwork can be completed through the British Embassy, has now been received from Tadesse Meskela the manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union.  We expect  three visitors, Nekemte, Mokonen Acuoke and Abreya Ibrahimto be with us between 29th May and 10th June 2008   Mokonon Acuoke and Abreya Ibrahim are Chair and Vice Chair respectively of Choche Coffee Farmers' Cooperative.  Like us, they are volunteers.  Unlike us, they also have farms to run.  During the coffee season the can be up all night to make sure that the previous day's harvest is fully processed.  A range of ideas have been suggested by committee members  which will enable them to enjoy their stay,  help in the campaign of awareness about Fairtrade in the town and take back to Choche stories and a record of their experiences which will cement our friendship with the community.   We know from the previous visit from Samuel Magona , a coffee farmer from Uganda who came to us via Oxfam, how successful direct links with producer communities can be and we hope that, with careful  planning, this visit will be equally if not more valuable to us and our visitors. 11 February 2008

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