CAFé BEN LINDER
“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got higher up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”
“Out of Africa”, based on the memoir of Karen Blixen, is a great film I can watch over and over again. The stunning cinematography of David Watkins and the direction of Sidney Pollack really do justice to the sweeping panoramas of East Africa. The movie focuses on Blixen’s alleged love affair with Denys Finch Hatton, but it’s really about life in colonial Kenya during a now forgotten age. “Out of Africa” is also about the failure of a ill-advised farming venture due to the unsustainability of the soil of Blixen’s farm for coffee cultivation and the world wide depression that also severely affected the price of coffee.
The coffee trade, with its origins in Africa, is immense and second only to oil in its value on world markets. The coffee trade is a murky business with all kinds of wheeler dealers and power brokers taking a slice of the pie. The sad reality is that small-time farmers gain little benefit from the beans cultivation. They are small cogs in a long supply chain from bean processing to the consumption of nearly 8 million bags of the stuff annually.
I recently read an absorbing book of fair trade coffee that made its way to me via Bookcrossing - “Javatrekker - Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee” by Dean Cycon. Cycon is the owner of “Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee” and has traveled through Africa, Asia, South and Central America supporting indigenous growers and cooperatives through the combination of strict fair trade principles, profit sharing and development assistance. It’s well worth reading and gave me a better understanding about the global trade and culture of coffee.
Being involved with one of the largest literacy NGO’s in South Africa for more than a decade the sustainability of aid projects is a continuous source of worry and frustration. Far too many projects in which a lot of funding and expertise are invested fail in the long term. I often wonder why this happens. My view is that many schools or communities don’t take ownership and will rather wait for the next aid organization to assist. The helplessness and hopelessness are perpetuated into the next generation. Last week, for instance, I received a request for library resources quoting the following frightening statistics;
“The O.R Tambo district is the poorest district in the Eastern Cape in terms of all poverty measures. Out of a population of 274 000, 35% of households have no income, and only 8% of people are employed. 41% of Eastern Cape households live on less that R9 500 per year. 59% of the provincial population is under the age of 20. 40% of people here have had no schooling. 62% of households have no toilets (including pit latrines), and only 2.8% have piped water. The rest are dependent on rain water when and if it falls, or else rivers and streams. 29% of the provincial population is HIV positive (which is among the highest rates in the country).
Long-term changes need to take place in order to significantly improve the situation in the Eastern Cape, and the Government is starting to implement changes to boost infrastructure, education, health and economy. The aim is working at grassroots level to take people beyond mere survival by participating in projects that will make a significant difference to their well-being.”
It’s even more frightening when one reads this in context of a country that spend billions this year to present the FIFA World Cup.
The key to successful aid intervention is without doubt community participation and localized sustainable skills development. What intrigued me about “Javatrekker” is that in a number of countries that Cycon spread the gospel of Fair Trade the newly gained expertise and marketing opportunities were utilized to the benefit of society as a whole.
The most intriguing chapter in “Javatrekker” for me was “Coffee, Landmines and Hope” about coffee growing in Nicaragua
Nicaragua, as many other third world countries was blighted by civil war for all kinds of bizarre reasons, are strewn with forgotten landmines. These weapons from hell indiscriminately maim or kill innocents civilians long after the conflict has ended leaving people crippled in places where there are little prospects for people with disabilities.
Walking Unidos was established in Nicaragua with the assistance of the Massachusetts-based Polus Center for Social and Economic Development to manufacture prosthetic legs and arms with donated power tools and plastic casts. Cycon stumbled on the idea to open a café in León - a university town with a number of foreign tourists passing through - as a source of income and job creation for Walking Unidos.
The Café Ben Linder, the first café-roasterie in León, wholly owned and operated by Walking Unidos opened in 2002. All profit is used by the clinic to pay for operating expenses, prosthetic materials and tools. In the first year, it paid for one prosthetic limb per month and by 2007 it had provided Walking Unidos with cash for prosthetics and related services for many of the rural poor.
The café also provides meaningful employment for many people with disabilities. The Café Linder has had its ups and downs through the years but it survives and produces a small source of income for Walking Unidos.
The roasterie was named after a young American engineer killed by anti-Government Contra rebels in 1987 while working on a small hydro-electrical dam in northern Nicaragua. Linder also participated in vaccination campaigns, using his talents as a clown, juggler, and unicyclist to entertain the local children. His death added fuel to the already polarized debate in the US with opponents of the Reagan administration heavily criticizing the use of tax-payers money to finance the killing of an American citizen as well as thousands of Nicaraguan civilians.
The Contra affair is gone and largely forgotten. Ronald Reagan has also ridden his horse into the sunset many years ago. The memory of Ben Linder lives on in a small café in Leon that was decorated with a beautiful mural showing his life painted by the Northampton artist Greg Stone.
Mural at the Ben Linder Café
Originally uploaded by NicaRagans
Perhaps small success stories like the Café Ben Linder and the lives we positively change by making children functionally literate makes all the frustration and disappointments insignificant. The starfish philosophy works for me most of the time; and I buy my coffee from Bean There who only sells African fair trade coffee.
“Out of Africa”, based on the memoir of Karen Blixen, is a great film I can watch over and over again. The stunning cinematography of David Watkins and the direction of Sidney Pollack really do justice to the sweeping panoramas of East Africa. The movie focuses on Blixen’s alleged love affair with Denys Finch Hatton, but it’s really about life in colonial Kenya during a now forgotten age. “Out of Africa” is also about the failure of a ill-advised farming venture due to the unsustainability of the soil of Blixen’s farm for coffee cultivation and the world wide depression that also severely affected the price of coffee.
The coffee trade, with its origins in Africa, is immense and second only to oil in its value on world markets. The coffee trade is a murky business with all kinds of wheeler dealers and power brokers taking a slice of the pie. The sad reality is that small-time farmers gain little benefit from the beans cultivation. They are small cogs in a long supply chain from bean processing to the consumption of nearly 8 million bags of the stuff annually.
I recently read an absorbing book of fair trade coffee that made its way to me via Bookcrossing - “Javatrekker - Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee” by Dean Cycon. Cycon is the owner of “Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee” and has traveled through Africa, Asia, South and Central America supporting indigenous growers and cooperatives through the combination of strict fair trade principles, profit sharing and development assistance. It’s well worth reading and gave me a better understanding about the global trade and culture of coffee.
Being involved with one of the largest literacy NGO’s in South Africa for more than a decade the sustainability of aid projects is a continuous source of worry and frustration. Far too many projects in which a lot of funding and expertise are invested fail in the long term. I often wonder why this happens. My view is that many schools or communities don’t take ownership and will rather wait for the next aid organization to assist. The helplessness and hopelessness are perpetuated into the next generation. Last week, for instance, I received a request for library resources quoting the following frightening statistics;
“The O.R Tambo district is the poorest district in the Eastern Cape in terms of all poverty measures. Out of a population of 274 000, 35% of households have no income, and only 8% of people are employed. 41% of Eastern Cape households live on less that R9 500 per year. 59% of the provincial population is under the age of 20. 40% of people here have had no schooling. 62% of households have no toilets (including pit latrines), and only 2.8% have piped water. The rest are dependent on rain water when and if it falls, or else rivers and streams. 29% of the provincial population is HIV positive (which is among the highest rates in the country).
Long-term changes need to take place in order to significantly improve the situation in the Eastern Cape, and the Government is starting to implement changes to boost infrastructure, education, health and economy. The aim is working at grassroots level to take people beyond mere survival by participating in projects that will make a significant difference to their well-being.”
It’s even more frightening when one reads this in context of a country that spend billions this year to present the FIFA World Cup.
The key to successful aid intervention is without doubt community participation and localized sustainable skills development. What intrigued me about “Javatrekker” is that in a number of countries that Cycon spread the gospel of Fair Trade the newly gained expertise and marketing opportunities were utilized to the benefit of society as a whole.
The most intriguing chapter in “Javatrekker” for me was “Coffee, Landmines and Hope” about coffee growing in Nicaragua
Nicaragua, as many other third world countries was blighted by civil war for all kinds of bizarre reasons, are strewn with forgotten landmines. These weapons from hell indiscriminately maim or kill innocents civilians long after the conflict has ended leaving people crippled in places where there are little prospects for people with disabilities.
Walking Unidos was established in Nicaragua with the assistance of the Massachusetts-based Polus Center for Social and Economic Development to manufacture prosthetic legs and arms with donated power tools and plastic casts. Cycon stumbled on the idea to open a café in León - a university town with a number of foreign tourists passing through - as a source of income and job creation for Walking Unidos.
The Café Ben Linder, the first café-roasterie in León, wholly owned and operated by Walking Unidos opened in 2002. All profit is used by the clinic to pay for operating expenses, prosthetic materials and tools. In the first year, it paid for one prosthetic limb per month and by 2007 it had provided Walking Unidos with cash for prosthetics and related services for many of the rural poor.
The café also provides meaningful employment for many people with disabilities. The Café Linder has had its ups and downs through the years but it survives and produces a small source of income for Walking Unidos.
The roasterie was named after a young American engineer killed by anti-Government Contra rebels in 1987 while working on a small hydro-electrical dam in northern Nicaragua. Linder also participated in vaccination campaigns, using his talents as a clown, juggler, and unicyclist to entertain the local children. His death added fuel to the already polarized debate in the US with opponents of the Reagan administration heavily criticizing the use of tax-payers money to finance the killing of an American citizen as well as thousands of Nicaraguan civilians.
The Contra affair is gone and largely forgotten. Ronald Reagan has also ridden his horse into the sunset many years ago. The memory of Ben Linder lives on in a small café in Leon that was decorated with a beautiful mural showing his life painted by the Northampton artist Greg Stone.
Mural at the Ben Linder Café
Originally uploaded by NicaRagans
Perhaps small success stories like the Café Ben Linder and the lives we positively change by making children functionally literate makes all the frustration and disappointments insignificant. The starfish philosophy works for me most of the time; and I buy my coffee from Bean There who only sells African fair trade coffee.