Former Community-Led Development Partnerships

From 2015-2020, The Chain Collaborative partnered with Las Diosas, a women’s coffee cooperative in Esteli, Nicaragua that is committed to the development and interests of rural Nicaraguan women. Comprising over 220 coffee-farming members, Las Diosas stands in solidarity with their member farmers to improve economic opportunity and labor force integration for rural women. They promote organic production, agroecology, and food sovereignty, and advocate for feminist agriculture, putting people and land over profit. From 2015-2019, The Chain Collaborative partnered with the Asociación de Pequeñas Productoras de Café, Mujeres de Chaucha (AMC), an association of small producers located in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. AMC’s mission is to decrease the threat of out-migration from their rural community of Chaucha, Ecuador, by supporting a collaborative, community-wide, and women-led project of income generation and job creation. With support from The Chain Collaborative, AMC organized to enhance local livelihoods and diversify their incomes through providing a processing center and point of sale for coffee producers in their region.

Through these above partnerships, TCC was able to support the following community-led activities:

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  • The creation of an alternative income source for Las Diosas members (cooperative beekeeping)
  • The launch of a food security project post-crisis in Nicaragua to decrease dependence on agri-business
  • The construction of a coffee processing and distribution center in Ecuador, equipped with a tree nursery, wastewater collection pond, and coffee quality lab
  • The provision of training in coffee farming, harvesting, and post-harvesting in Ecuador