We’re celebrating five years of collaboration and partnership between Farmers' Voice Radio, Dark Woods Coffee, and Café de Panama with a special edition of our Panama La Huella anaerobic natural coffee. This will be available exclusively at Manchester Coffee Festival with all proceeds from the sale of this Great Taste Golden Fork winning coffee going to support the work of Farmers’ Voice Radio.
Five years ago this month, during the depths of the COVID pandemic, we joined forces with Farmers’ Voice Radio and our friend Pedro Moss, at Café de Panama - La Huella, to back an outreach project supporting indigenous Ngobe-Bugle communities in northern Panama.
These vulnerable communities’ livelihoods are heavily dependent on seasonal work on coffee farms, and they will often travel from farm to farm seeking work. During COVID, and the associated lock-down in Panama, all travel was restricted; coffee farmers were unable to hire seasonal workers, and the people of the Ngobe-Bugle communities were unable to travel between farms or get paid work.
In light of these extremely difficult circumstances, a collaborative project was designed to circulate information on COVID-19 related health risks and to offer some guidance on how to generate alternative livelihoods.
This innovative project brought together local coffee producer and exporter, La Huella, along with the amazing Panamian NGO Culturama and the radio outreach expertise of Farmers’ Voice Radio. The project was funded by Dark Woods Coffee, with additional support from the British Embassy in Panama.
Over the course of several months, Culturama, trained and supported by Farmers’ Voice Radio, produced and broadcast weekly 30-minute radio programmes. These targeted an audience of almost half a million people in the Chriqui Province, particularly focussed on supporting 150,000 people from the Ngobe-Buglé indigenous community.
Airing every Monday and Thursday, the programmes addressed the social and economic challenges faced by rural smallholders and local indigenous people as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of the listener feedback included:
From Marlene: “I’ve learnt how to make my own organic compost, from food and organic waste materials. I’ve been able to add this as an input into my own food garden. This avoids chemical use and has reduced the cost of production, as I’ve not had to add fertiliser. I’m very grateful that you have helped me become more self-sufficient.”
From Amarilis: “The programmes have been fantastic in terms of developing our agricultural activities. On the last programme there was some really useful information on how to preserve foods. I was most interested learning about methods for preserving beans so that you only have to warm them up and serve them ready to eat. The programmes are very practical, and I would love to put into practice the advice.”
You can find out more about this fantastic project here.
