Connected by Coffee
Connected by Coffee shows how the equitable trading relationship called Free Trade empowers Central American coffee growers. The film is the kick-off for the Utopia Film Festival, which is celebrating its 10th year anniversary at various venues in Greenbelt from October 24 to 26, 2014.
The film shows how the cooperative movement now called Fair Trade got its start in the context of gross economic inequity; a Central American coffee farmer’s daily wages is typically less than we spend on one cappuccino. The film aims to show how everyone who drinks coffee is connected to those who grow it.
Part of the evening’s discussion will include the local founder of Blessed Coffee in Takoma Park, Tebabu Assefa.
He is a community Leader and Social Entrepreneur and founder of Blessed Coffee (BC) a social business that supports 200,000 coffee farmers in Ethiopia improving their social capital through a new model of business called Virtues Exchanges (VE) that connects small farmers and producers with the consumer directly. BC is the second company to register as a Benefit Corporation (a public corporation chartered and produces public benefit as well as profit), a hybrid of for-profit and non-profit models that aims for community benefits as well as profits in the State of Maryland.
You must be logged in to post a comment.