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Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, travels to Rwanda to meet with coffee farmers, artisans
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Schultz receives gift from Janet Kubula of Fair Winds Trading/Starbucks Coffee
Company photo. Below: Schultz meets with Dr. Jose Nyamusore Mwanza of
TRAC/Starbuks Coffee Company photo.
Starbucks chairman, president and ceo, Howard Schultz, traveled to Rwanda to meet with coffee farmers, artisans and to visit the Treatment and Research AIDS Center (TRAC). TRAC is Rwanda’s national HIV and AIDS research center housing the country’s busiest HIV clinic. Schultz along with members of his executive team learned how the availability of antiretroviral therapy, which (RED) helped finance has made a difference in peoples’ lives.
Not only is Rwanda battling with the HIV and AIDS epidemic, but the country is rebuilding from the 1994 genocide, where 800,000 people were killed in three months of violence. In the 15 years since, Rwanda has become the world’s leading example of transforming a post-conflict economy. And the reason for the country’s success starts with its most potent economic force…women. Women found opportunity to grow coffee in the fertile lands they inherited from slaughtered husbands, fathers and brothers.
According to a 2008 article in the Washington Post, both female and male survivors sought to rebuild coffee plantations with financial and technical assistance from international organizations. Women, most trying their hands at the business of farming for the first time, were by far the faster students. They showed more willingness than men, Rwandan officials said, to embrace new techniques aimed at improving quality and profit. Now, the female coffee farmers are outdoing their male counterparts numbering about half of all farmers in the coffee cooperatives but producing 90 percent of its finest quality beans for export.
Starting this week, Starbucks will offer for a limited time a selection of African coffees and other products at participating stores in the U.S. and Canada. The featured coffees include a 100 percent Rwanda coffee and an East African blend offered as part of Starbucks ongoing relationship with (PRODUCT)RED. For every pound of the (STARBUCKS)RED Whole Bean Coffee sold in the U.S. and Canada, Starbucks will contribute $1 to The Global Fund to help support AIDS programs such as those at TRAC.
Also available in select Starbucks stores this summer will be merchandise from Fair Winds Trading Rwanda. The artisans at Fair Winds Trading are working to create a better life for themselves and their families. So the next time you stop by Starbucks for your morning latte, consider picking up a bag of (STARBUCKS)RED along with an authentic African fabric tumbler and a cotton canvas hand-sewn tote to carry it in. It’s better for the environment and the people of Rwanda.
Comment below and let us know what you think about the new African coffees at Starbucks.
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