Goals that guide us
Women Inclusion and Empowerment
Anyone who has visited a coffee processing site in Ethiopia will know that women are integral to the industry. The majority of low paying seasonal labour is provided by women but very few farms are women owned. In addition, those farms are often less productive as women have less access to resources – primarily inputs, finance, and training.
Our approach has two main pillars.
Providing women with the skills and knowledge to enhance economic empowerment
- Ephtah provides training programs around production and quality analysis to help improve women’s knowledge and confidence. This often leads to an improvement in their access to finance which can lead to dramatic improvements in their standard of living.
- Ephtah provides women with alternative sources of income through our Ama Commitment scheme.
Strengthening women’s voice and participation in decision making and leadership.
- Ephtah helps to create safe spaces for women in the communities we source from. We collaborate with local groups to encourage women in the community to become involved in local decision-making processes and leadership positions.
- The vast majority of the Ephtah management team are women.
Boosting Production and Improving Quality
It is our responsibility to ensure Ethiopian coffee is sustainable in the global environment. Our farmers need to benefit and we need to be part of the positive change which creates efficiencies in the supply chain, improving yields and improving quality.
In order to accurately measure our success in achieving this, we need to have traceability in the supply chain.
Ephtah coffee is fully traceable to the farmer.
Ephtah also provides the following support to our farmers and suppliers.
- Financing.
- Agronomy training.
- Price risk management.
- Post harvest processing training.
Community Engagement
The traditional coffee ceremony is at the centre of all community celebrations in Ethiopia. We are privileged to work in a sector which can provide relationships between so many people from so many diverse places. We believe it is our responsibility to help develop strong relationships in the communities we work in and between our partners in Ethiopia and in destination countries.
To encourage our employee to live by the principles and standards we set ourselves, we need to ensure we are a good employer. We do this through:
- Ensuring all our employees have access to high quality training, regardless of the job they do.
- Providing regular career and performance development reviews.
- Encouraging a company culture of self improvement and innovation.
Ama Commitment
Our Ama Commitment project was designed to enable our clients to get involved with meaningful on the ground change for women in rural Ethiopia.
Ama Commitment, when translated into English, means: The Mothers Commitment
Ama Commitment began as a project promoting women farmers coffee. The direct relationship with the farmers enables the woman to receive a significantly higher price than they had done previously.
We have also assisted the farmers through pre-financing, quality improvement projects, through the donation of drying beds and slow drying nets and agronomical training support.
The second stage of Ama Commitment has been about improving the opportunities of the next generation of Ethiopians in Gedeb. We have set up two-day care centres, the first in Idido and the second in Lalesa. The benefit of this is twofold. It gives the young children a head start in life, before they start school. It allows the mothers to focus on providing more income for the family, especially during the busy harvest season.