Friends,
Recently, my wife, Donna, and I hiked one of the many ancient Anasazi Indian sites in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. We set out to find Pueblo Alto, a mysterious architectural site located on an enormous plateau that is only accessible by climbing a steep, narrow, rocky passageway. Once on the plateau, there are no trails, just cairns—small, odd-sized rocks stacked atop each other to form pyramid-like structures that guide the way.
These cairns are nearly invisible as they stretch across the natural landscape of the plateau. To find our way from cairn to cairn, oftentimes Donna and I had to venture well past the last cairn in search of the next. In between cairns, the only reliable guide we had was trust, trust that we would eventually find our way to the next cairn. On this vast, barely marked plateau, in the blistering hot sun, we got lost.
While lost and searching for cairns, I found myself thinking of coffee producers and how they are often searching for their own cairns, for their next step towards a better life. At the Coffee Trust, we don’t offer a map for producers to find their way. But like cairns, we help producers find their next step. Our role is to ask questions, for producers to visualize their own goals, prioritize them and identify the challenges they see ahead. Their answers are framed within the margins of their own priorities, their own values and their own culture. As their own answers get them closer to their own goals, they gain trust in themselves and experience the empowerment that comes with self-reliance.
In the grand scheme of things, we are merely facilitators who deeply believe in a process that encourages producers to create their own projects. Without any one of us, we would be lost on the plateau. Thank you for your trust in us. Thank you for your trust in the producers. Thank you for your trust in partnering with all of us toward making a better, healthier, and more sustainable future for coffee producers in Guatemala. Some of the projects we’d like to support this coming year:
*Vision Guatemala (VG), our partners in San Pedro la Laguna collaborated with our partners, Chajulense de Mujeres by implementing a microcredit program of their own. The Coffee Trust is now collaborating with VG to help develop the program and strengthen leadership skills at VG.
*Supporting Education: The Coffee Trust continues to support the new school in Chajul spearheaded by Horizontes sin Limites, offering high-quality education to local children and a pathway to university education.
*University Scholarships: In 2023 The Coffee Trust will continue to provide scholarships to deserving Chajulense students who otherwise would have no chance at getting a college education. Our latest Chajulense graduate is now the technical advisor for the local coffee association, Asociación Chajulense.
Your generous contribution will make a world of difference for the indigenous coffee producers and their families in San Gaspar Chajul, Guatemala. Please make it today.
Thank you,
Bill Fishbein, Founder and Executive Director