Pioneer Fairtrade Coffee Farmer speaks in Westport

mayo | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Saturday March 18, 2006 23:05 by Keith Martin- Councillor - Westport Fairtrade Steering Committee ehackett at eircom dot net

Alivera Kiiza a Fairtrade Coffee grower from Tanzania was in Westport last Wednesday afternoon as a guest of the Westport and Castlebar Fairtrade Committees.

Alivera Kiiza-Fairtrade Coffee Farmer from Tanzania

Fairtrade Coffee Farmer in Westport

Alivera Kiiza a Fairtrade Coffee grower from Tanzania was in Westport last Wednesday afternoon as a guest of the Westport and Castlebar Fairtrade Committees. Alivera began her trip to town with a visit to Westport public Library to launch Westport’s Fairtrade exhibition. The exhibition is comprised of work by the local primary schools and the exhibits are maps, posters and signs and a collection of ‘Fairtrade’ board games on familiar themes such as Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders. Alivera was delighted with the children’s work. On hand to welcome Alivera were Sue Minish, Mary Walsh, Gemma Hennessey, and Cllr Keith Martin of the Westport Fairtrade Steering Committee and Francis Lally of the Castlebar Fairtrade Committee. Also attending the launch were Cllrs Adams, Flynn, Keating, and Staunton of Westport Town Council.

The group then proceeded to Westport Leisure Park where a crowd of hundreds were packed into the centre’s Auditorium for a talk on Fairtrade by Alivera, which was part of Alivera’s tour of Ireland as part of Fairtrade Fortnight, which ran from March 6 to 19. Alivera is the first woman manager of the fair-trade coffee cooperative in Karagwe in Northwest Tanzania. Last July the 29 year old attended the G8 summit in Scotland as she was one of eight African women (the W8) who went to Edinburgh to tell their stories to the G8 leaders about challenging poverty in their own countries.

Alivera started working as an office assistant in the marketing department of Karagwe District Cooperative Union Ltd (KDCU) in 2000. She quickly moved on to become manager. The Cooperative has 16,000 members, 5,000 of which are women. One of Alivera’s first achievements as manager was to get the coffee cooperative to allow women farmers to own coffee trees so they could become full members of the coffee co-operative as in many countries coffee is seen as a man’s crop.

The talk was chaired by Cllr Keith Martin of the Westport Fairtrade committee. Welcoming the audience Cllr Martin paid tribute to Alivera for her work in Ireland in promoting Fairtrade. He also thanked Westport Town Council and Dermott Langan and Westport Leisure Park for hosting the talk.

Alivera explained that “a significant effect of Fairtrade is that is allows KDCU to regularly bid for its own coffee and sell through Fairtrade. Fairtrade provides a reliable income (Premium) for a small proportion of the coffee sold by KDCU each year. This is because the Fairtrade system guarantees a minimum price for coffee.”

Alivera told the audience that the Premium from Fairtrade is used to run the local secondary school and to conduct workshops on strengthening the organisation, in particular strengthening the role of women in the co-operative. Alivera explained that in Tanzania schooling must be paid for by parents and as a consequence many had limited schooling or none at all but now that was changing thanks to the Fairtrade Premium.

Alivera explained how Fairtrade had made life for her and the fellow coffee farmers so much better, though Fairtrade still only accounts for 25% of her co-operatives’ sales. She explained how they were at the mercy of market prices and coffee purchasers who were looking for the lowest possible price for beans. The role of women in the industry was one Alivera highlighted as up until recently women had no say in growing coffee. They couldn’t rent the farms, own coffee plants or sell coffee. She spoke of how that had changed over the last eight years adding “If you educate a woman, you educate a community. The change is good because the women have power, they have a say and it encourages them.”

Her talk was followed by a question and answer session during which Alivera took questions from the audience on subjects ranging from the flavour of her coffee to how she tells bad coffee beans from good through to her experiences of Fairtrade as a farmer, Fairtrade in Ireland and her experiences at the G8 summit in Gleneagles last year.

After the talk Fairtrade tea and coffee was served by the Westport and Castlebar Fairtrade Committees and students from Sacred Heart School Westport. Westport Fairtrade Committee would like to thank the council, Westport businesses, consumers, schools, coffee shops and restaurants for the support they have given the efforts of the committee. More information on Westport’s bid for Fairtrade status is available online at Westport Fairtrade Committee’s website at www.fairtradewestport.com