The Coffees of our lives

I sit outside the porch at my mother's house and watch the heavy December rains. I watch the muddy waters running down to the coffee fileds.... I think about my childhood and the coffees of our lives. The coffees in the slopes of Africa's mountains of Kenya and The Aberdares, where some of the most unique coffees in the world are found, where the birds chirp happilly at the break of dawn.

 I think of my coffee producers who are toiling outside in the rain picking the last coffees for this season. I think of their children and the hopes and dreams all based on the coffee from  my village. I think of what tomorrow brings....will we continue struggling?
Last month the schools closed for the December holidays, and the kids from my village are now looking forward for the opening day in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to new beginnings with the coming year, looking forward to better days. Can i guarantee them better days through the sale of this seasons coffee? can i give them chances to dream again? Everyday that passes i worry for my coffee producers and their families, i worry for what lies ahead....may the force be with us.

Our vision being the economic stability of our coffee producers, we make sure that we keep their children in school, we support the education requirements of their children so that they can have access to universal education, guarantee the future of my village so they can later on lead dignified lives.
With this in mind, we visited Ndurutu Primary School during the closing day for the year 2014.
Ndurutu Primary School lies approximately 150 kms northwest of Nairobi the capital of Kenya. Its also situated 200 metres from Ndurutu Wet Mill, whose coffee is currently available on sale in Germany.
The school has currently 166 pupils all from Ndurutu Village.
Ndurutu Primary is a government owned public school. Unfortunately, like most rural schools in Kenya, its currently underfunded and in dire need of various resources from renovated classrooms, books, desks to writing materials.
We visited the school and supported them with new desks.We braced the muddy rainy weather with a group of journalists from Journalist network from Germany.The look on the faces of the pupils of my old school told it all.
 

They could now again sit on desks comfortably without being squeezed. They could now concentrate on learning without worrying where to sit and write on....This would not have been possible without the support of our partners Heinz and Nicole of Sandtorkai Handel Papenhagen.Without them, my dream was just that; A dream. For all your continued support my sincere gratitude.

Davie of Kedovo counterchecking that all is inorder

Kedovo Kenya team handing over part of the new  desks to the School Chairman

On closing day we distributed story books and text books for a new functional school library that we are setting up.

A library that will ensure that the kids from my village will have access of the required school curriculum. A library that will give them a chance to dare again to dream and see the world, a chance to broaden their horizons and give them chances beyond primary school.
We also issued presents to the pupils who had performed well in the exams, to motivate them to work harder and build chances for sustainable dignfied livelihoods.

 

The KEDOVO gang told stories of our childhoods, stories filled of struggle, despair but amidst all hope.We told the story of us growing up and vowing to 'get out' of the village where our parents struggled from dawn to dusk.We told the story of us coming back together 15 years later to rebuild the lives of the coffee producers and their families, because we believed.We told the story of the journey of my village towards self reliance and their part in it; where survival was not enough.... the story of Chania Coffee and our belief that the economic stability of the coffee producers and their families begins when they are supported with the necessary tools, resources, networks and knowledge to rebuild their lives. We told the story of a village that now had hope.....

In our work we encourage young people to do their best, and for this the children of our coffee producers are in the forefront. They deserve chances and acess to good education opportunities, chances to a good future, chances to dream of being Firefighters, Pilots, Doctors, Teachers, Engineers....chances to see Disney World :D 

Davie telling the story of our childhood

The Kedovo- Kenya team encouraging the kids of Ndurutu that everything is possible

Would the coffees in our lives guarantee my people this? Would the coffee roasters in Germany and the EU give chances of economic development to my people? would they agree to work with my farmers and expose them to modern farming techniques and practises that were within the economic, social and environmental limits? Are they willing to tell the story and plight of our coffee producers as it is? i worry....

Our work is based on the direct and transparent relationships with the farmers who produce our coffee.Where we make sure that our clients can trace every package of coffee back to the village it was harvested, where we believe that its economic opportunities and not Aid that transforms communities.

To continue supporting these communities we are currently offering Green coffee (Rohkaffee) from Ndurutu Wet Mill late crop 2013-2014 F.O.T Bremen, transport within Germany & the EU arrangable at a cost. Please contact Soni Schneidewind or Nicole Boedgter for information on samples, prices and contract.

For clients interested in already roasted coffees kindly purchase from our Online Shop.
To Nicole and Heinz; thanks for giving my people the chance to rebuild their lives, for letting their children go to school without a worry of where to sit on, or on what to write on or read, for putting smiles back on their faces.
To the Roasters and other clients who have been with us on this journey, thankyou for being part of the KEDOVO/ Chania Coffee family- for being in the forefront of supporting my coffee producers to rebuild their lives.We still have a lot of work infront of us, our journey hasnt still come to an end, survival for my people is not enough, lets us make it happen.

So long

Soni

Kedovo's project on Access to clean water

We all take for granted how easily it is to turn that tap of water and have fresh clean water flowing freely.
Everyday people from my village spend billions of hours every year walking for water. They bear the burden of walking for many kilometres to gather water from streams, rivers and ponds that are sometimes contaminated.

Clean water for my community means health, income and education. How??
Time spent walking to the river, resulting diseases keeping them from school, work and taking care of their families. All this affects the potentiality of the women in the community.When the children are freed from gathering water, they return to classes or do their homework easily and become more productive in school.
Access to clean water breaks the cycle of poverty.
Technologies in accessing clean water vary and so do costs. For my community we teamed up with a group of our coffee producers and the Kedovo gang in Kenya to determine the most sustainable means to provide access to clean and safe water. We settled on rain catchment that will have a long term impact and use a holistic approach and accountable over time.
Together with our funding partners; Bingo Projektförderung Schleswig Holstein - the Kedovo Wasertanks für Nyeri project began in Nov 2014 for a period of 1 year. The project is targeting 20 homesteads and 1 primary school within Kiganjo , Nyeri .

We engage the community in planning and installations of the watertanks that will be used for rain water catchment and storage. This may sound simple but in the bigger picture, our project contributes to an ambitious plan—the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)—that pledges to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide by 2015.

Ndurutu Village located between the Mt Kenya and The Aberdares receives enough rainfall that can be utilised as a means of safe clean water, not only for domestic use but also for setting up small garden/ vertical gardens to provide the communities with vegetables throught the year.
Ndurutu villagers spend hours each day retrieving water their families need to survive.As my people rely on coffee farming, the time-consuming retrieval process also diverts efforts from activities crucial to sustainable development, such as education and farming.

As a child , i grew up walking 1.5 kilometres to the Chania River to collect more than 40 litres of water everday. With the rest of the Kedovo gang, we struggled in the hot tropical sun, in the muddy november weather with 20 litres jericans strapped at our backs.
Three decades later, most of the kids from my village still struggle uphill with water jericans strapped at their backs. At Kedovo, we believe that creating acess to safe drinking water is the most powerful way to improve my community.

We educate communities so they can embrace clean water solutions.
By improving access to clean water we Improve sanitation.

Clean water transforms a communities......

Without our partners Nicole Boedtger and Heinz Papenhagen, this would not have been possible. And for this i thank them wholeheartedly from my heart.

And for Bingo funding- our sincere gratitude.

To all the great people who continue following us on our journey, thankyou for being part of the Kedovo/ Chania Coffee family, without you all this journey would have been so much harder.

To continue supporting our work,we are currently offeering coffee from Ndurutu Wet Mill, available F.O.T Bremen, transport to other destinations within the EU arrangable at extra cost. Pease contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for Pricing, Samples and Contracting.

Our journey continues.

Kedovo and The Millennium Development Goals

 Its been a long time since i updated our Blog. Well  i travelled to Kenya at the beginning of November to visit our Local partner organisation and plan on the way forward for our community development projects.

The last couple of weeks have seen the International community very active in making assessments regarding the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals. What are the Millenium Development Goals? These are goals which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015.

 Kedovo has been focusing on some of these goals that include the Achievement of universal primary education, Ensure Environmental sustainability, Promote ender equality and empower women, Eradict extreme poverty and hunger as well as Develop a global partnership for development.
We have been advocating and facilitating projects in Nyeri Kenya for the last 1 and half years, projects aimed towards the achievement of the MDG's, projects aimed at the achievement of self reliance for the communities of the Aberdare mountains.
We teamed up with a group of journalists from journalists. network Germany, and braced the rain, the muddy paths of Ndurutu village in Nyeri, the village of my birth, and visited my people. The plan was to visit the grassroot communities of my village and showcase the work of Kedovo towards the achievement and implementation of the MDG's. How far are we? are these goals achievable by the year 2015?

Read our story here:Mit Kaffee aus der Armut

Our work has been to train my community towards self reliance, as i only believe that communities can only develop if they are facilitated with the necessary tools, the necessary information, the networks to take control of their lives. In my new country of residence we call this Hilfe für Selbstshilfe.
Our work has not been easy, our work is based on the transparent cultivation of coffee in a sustainable manner, and using the coffee as a resource to get my community out of the cycle of poverty, unemployment, disease and hunger. May the force be with us.
Our believe and promise in Kedovo and Chania Coffee  is to make the production of coffee for my community, economically sustainable.This can only happen if our coffee producers are able to meet their basic needs ! This can only be achieved if we bring in knowledge and resources and networks to these coffee producers; that is when their economic stability begins; that is when their jouney towards self reliance begins, thats when we give their children chances beyond primary education, thats when we head towards the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals.....Share our story.

This journey would not have been possible without our partners Nicole Boedgter and Heinz Papenhagen of Sandtorkai Handel Papenhagen. For their partnership, friendship, trust and patience we will always be grateful. 

The journey would have been difficult without the Roasters in Germany who have and continue believing in us; Kira, Connie,Jonas, Daniel, Thimo, Pingo, Burg just to mention a few. Asante sana.

To the Roasters in Germany, remember with the purchase of our coffee, you give hope to the kids of my village, hope beyond  primary schools, hope to dare to dream and to see the world....Purchase of our coffees facilitates Access to clean water for my people...As usual lets make it happen.

We are currently offerring coffee from Ndurutu Wet Mill - Rutuma Cooperative Nyeri, late harvest 2013/ 2014 F.O.T Bremen- transport to other destination within Germany arrangable at a cost. 

Please contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for samples, price quoatations and contracting.

The journey continues...

Signed

Soni

Africa Solidarity day in Kiel

The Fall is here. Its not my favourite season for various reasons, but mainly because it brings with it the shorter days. You see i grew up in a country that does not have seasons; it either rains like hell on the mountains of the Aberdares, or the hot tropical African sun sends you hiding underneath the shadowy Mugumo trees.
With now the shorter days, and darkness as early as 4 pm, it sends my mind to tricks that it is super late, so i start making soup and getting to bed earlier :O . The fall is one thing i dont think i will ever come to terms with.
Its nice ofcourse watching the tree leaves change colour on my street and eventually fall, but this brings in a sadness in me because deep down i know its the end of the nice weather.....and the beginning of the main coffee picking season for my people.

the view of my street with all the leaves changing colours and falling off

Well, 2 weeks ago saw us attend and co -organise the Afrika Solidaritätstag in Kiel Schleswig Holstein.
This is an event which is done once every year and brings together Migrants of African descent that live and work in Germany. These are amazing people who work together with their German counterparts in the state of Schleswig Holstein towards Intercultural understanding, Global Learning as well as Cooperative development with their countries of origin.
The theme for this year's event was Fairer Handel als Chance für Entwicklung.
We got to be one of the key note speakers based on our work with the coffee producers in Nyeri Kenya.



We did a presentation of the journey of my village, a presentation of what the coffee producers go through before they are able to produce those cups of our morning coffee that we take for granted.

Explaining much patience is required in coffee production-

With the Fall in Germany, my people in Kenya have the month of October, a month that brings with it the main coffee picking season, where the farmers toil from dawn to dusk...where my grandmother who doesnt even know her age still tends her coffee bushes. Our own close and personal relationship with these coffee producers, gives them a silver of hope, a hope for a sustainable market for their produce with the partnerships that we form in Germany, my the force be with us.

During the African Solidarity day, i show-cased the amazing work of these selfless producers and the process of coffee production and processing in Kenya.

Through Kedovo e.V we work with the coffee producers in Nyeri towards Sustainable coffee production, as well as support various community development projects in Kiganjo, with our hearts leaning heavily on supporting the education requirements for the children of our coffee producers.

The event was amazing, and it was such a fulfilling moment to meet other people who believe that if we work together we can bring the much needed development in Africa, not through Grants but through the facilitation of bringing in knowledge, tools and networks to communities back in Africa so that they can bring out their capacities and capabilities.

In pictures.....

and we danced....

So, as i continue surviving the Fall, my people continue picking coffee......
To the Roasters in Germany, remember with the purchase of our coffee, you give hope to the kids of my village, hope beyond  primary schools, hope to dare to dream and to see the world. As usual lets make it happen.

We are currently offerring coffee from Ndurutu Wet Mill - Rutuma Cooperative Nyeri, late harvest 2013/ 2014 F.O.T Bremen- transport to other destination within Germany arrangable at a cost. 

Please contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for samples, price quoatations and contracting.

More news from Ndurutu and the projects underway coming up in the week.

The journey continues....

The Kedovo Sustainable coffee farming Project-Ndurutu wet mill

Its been a while......Well a lot has happened and i have been busy transforming my Attic to liveable quarters.The boys decided they needed their own space to build all those trains that i kept stumbling on, and after several hours of debate and voting...they got the Attic. Its a relief for 'my space' downstairs, but that came with a price; i was a Carpenter for close to a month!!!!

Well, back to news from Ndurutu.......
Our sustainable coffee project in partnership with Ndurutu wet mill, entered another phase last month with a group of 10 farmers.

James our volunteer graphicer was busy making sure our farmers had enough protective clothing for the work ahead...

These farmers are undergoing various trainings on both Agronomy and Agri-business.They will later on act as multiplicators of the knowledge to the other farmers in the wet mill. Ndurutu wet mill has currently 527 small scale coffee farmers that produce approx 290,000 kgs of cherry annually. Their coffee is currently available for sale in Germany.

As most of us in the coffee world well know,Kenyan coffee has a distinctive unique quality and it does fetch good prices on the international markets. Unfortunately the kenyan coffee producers are still among the poorest communities in the world.
Our project doesnt dwell on what 'if' or make speculations, we simply want to go on living but with a different hope for our producers. We want our producers as well to understand that Sustainable coffee farming has to be about more than just the current way of doing things.
We want our farmers to understand that, for them to advance economically from coffee production, they have to do more than simply sending coffee in a burlap bag overseas and expecting the buyers to pay an 'arm and a leg' for it. For us to be paid these high prices we also have to add value to our coffee- that is the only way we can have a harmonised partnerships with our buyers in Germany.

To achieve this, Kedovo gang in Kenya is currently busy training the farmers on the following activities, which are at the basic level and yet very crucial in determining the final quality of the end product.

We also got inhouse our dedicated volunteer Mailin who is busy learning in Kenya all the processes of coffee production and processing. Welcome aboard Mailin.

Mailin cleaning coffee in Kenya

And so the gang gets ready with the following:

Agronomy:

• Soil conservation measures such as planting blue grass and digging erosion basins to hold soil run offs.
• Recycling of coffee by-products (Pulp) into the fields to build organic matter content.
• Planting of shade trees and re-afforestation.
• Appropriate land preparation.
• Organic foliar application.
•  Pests and diseases control management.
• Timely production activities eg Pruning, weed control, Desuckering etc.

These activities aims to increase the annual income of small-scale producers through improvements in productivity, quality, and diversity of the coffee. Currently the farmers have as low as 2kg productivity per coffee tree, with our agronomy trainings, we plan to increase productivity to atleast 5kg per coffee tree, and this will be high quality coffee leading to increased income.

 Agri-business:
Its is said that Agribusiness is one of the main generators of employment and income worldwide. I dont dispute. But do coffee producers practise agri business?
Davie of Kedovo Kenya asked one farmer how much he spent last month on costs of production, the farmer had no idea :( Now its in his docket to train our coffee producers what is record keeping, and how to factor the cost of labour in their calculations.
Our project emphasizes traininings in business management. I believe for these farmers to thrive, they must use a business approach in their coffee production.
We want our producers to develop themselves to an extent where they can run self-financed, well-managed business operations which can export directly to roasters worldwide. That is Sustainability.

Davie and Mailin.

The farmers will be trained as well on :

• Sound business practices
• Business management
• Record keeping
• Market information systems
• Accounting
• Business planning
• Savings and credit management. 

This project has been facilitated by our partner Sandtorkai Handel Papenhagen and ofcourse all of you roasters and our dedicated clients who continue buying the coffee from Soni and Nicole.
Many thanks to all of you who have believed in us, just to mention a few; Jonas, Kira, Daniel,Pingo, Thimo,Cornie, Eva, etc

We still have a lot of work ahead of us...lets make it happen.

As usual we still have some stocks of the Ndurutu coffee available at our warehouse in Bremen.

We are currently offerring the Ndurutu coffee, late harvest 2013/ 2014 F.O.T Bremen- transport to other destination within Germany arrangable at a cost. 

Please contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for samples, price quoatations and contracting.

In the meantime, Mailin continues to harvest and wet processes the coffee in Kenya..

And Soni and Kira get ready to travel to Kenya in the next couple of months...to prepare our next shipment.

So long!

Signed Soni

Bringing hope to Ndurutu Primary School

The other day i met someone at the weekend market, someone who boldly and bluntly asked me if  there are schools in 'Africa' and if i attended school there or if i schooled abroad etc etc...the usual strings of questions.
I answered yes there are schools in Africa or rather in the part of 'Africa' that i come from, you see am Kenyan so i can only talk about Kenya. In the end i reffered the lady to this blog so she could learn the work that we do, and show her where I and my team in Kenya went to school....i hope she is reading this.

Ndurutu Primary School- my former school

Anyway, back to our post of the day.
The coffee from Ndurutu Wet mill arrived in Germany and Me and my partner Nicole are busy 'knocking doors' selling this coffee so we can continue with the next phase of our projects.

The gang in Kenya from Kedovo are busy implementing and facilitating the planned sustainable projects from the sale of this coffee.Today they spent the whole morning at Ndurutu Primary school, mentoring and bringing hope to the children of our coffee producers from Ndurutu Wet Mill.

Davie & George of Kedovo Kenya arriving at Ndurutu Primary

Ndurutu Primary is located in Kiganjo, Nyeri county approximately 150 kms from Nairobi on the Nairobi- Nanyuki- Isiolo road.The school has currently 166 pupils, who are all from the coffee farming community.
The school is government owned and underfunded esp in terms of teachers,learning materials, schools buildings among other amenities.The school infrastructure has drastically deteriorated, including classroom blocks, toilets, writting boards etc and as a result teachers are less inclined to stay and invest in the school.

The morale of the children is low, as they do not see a bright future ahead, most of them lack the basic amenities.....and this is where now the Kedovo-Chania Coffee gang comes in.Our work is to bring hope to communities and show them that everything is possible. We connect communities and form sustainable partneships that lead to development.What mainly lies in our hearts especially is that the children of our coffee producers, can have access to education and learn in conducive environment, and give them the hope of when tomorrow comes... we want our coffee producing communities to start rebuilding their lives and head towards the journey of self- reliance.
Today the gang distributed uniforms and writting books to some of the pupils.

  

You see Uniforms are very important in the Kenyan schooling system. Its mandatory for each child to wear school uniform in Kenya's public schools.Attending school without uniform is a punishable offence that can lead even to the pupil being expeled from school.

School uniforms In Kenya is not even an issue that is up for debate, its believed that they enhance a sense of visual equality and decrease distractions from schoolwork when at school, as well as make students easy to identify.

Many parents in the community can still not afford to buy school uniforms, and thats why we have the Kedovo school uniform program, where we donate the uniforms to the children. As we all in Kedovo and Chania Coffee grew up there, we do not need any studies or researches to understand the impact of distributing school uniforms to children in Kenya. 

I myself personally remember at one time when i was in class 5 and my uniform was torn and had this big patch that my mother had sewn overnight with a white thread ( the uniform was green- so you can imagine the contrast :o)....i was so embrassed in school because the other children who maybe had 'better off' parents would make fun of the patchwork, i cried so much that i didnt attend the school the next day, and my mother had to sell our only remaining goat; Chifi to buy me a school uniform.Well i got an uniform but that meant my younger brother had to go for months without the goat milk- he forgave me when he grew up ;)

Many children feel stigmatized by the failure to wear an uniform and they maybe even be reprimanded by the teachers.

So basically we have the experience and we know and believe that distributing uniforms reduces school absenteesim by a big percentage.The effects are actually quite larger for pupils who did not previously own a uniform or had a torn one.

We know very well  that reducing the cost of schooling by providing uniforms among other inputs increases school participation and our plan is to encourage these children so that we can stem up their feelings and overall perfomance.

                                                   

Many people might not understand the reasons for school uniforms in Kenya but Equality is promoted through school uniforms. In a country where there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor there is a dire need to ensure that there is a sense of equality in as many areas as possible. It is especially important for young people to learn that in as much as they come from various backgrounds, be it economic, religious or ethnic, they are equal in their goals and purpose in the academic institutions. School uniforms do this rather effectively in that they cost the roughly the same amount and they are all alike, thus bringing out a sense of equality among the students regardless of where they come from.

We also supported the school with books. Many people might ask why books? Many social- economic factors such as the inability to afford text books and writting books often lead to poor or dismal performance even for bright and determined students meaning that their academic career will end prematurely. The Kedovo project of Education for sustainable development ensures that we provide books and offer support to the children of our coffee producers with the goal of enabling them to perform better in school and in so doing we open up more academic opportunities for them, opportunities that are beyond the primary school levels, opportunities to see the world.....opportunities to dare to dream...

i

The Kedovo gang doing their 'slow motion' distributing books in Ndurutu Primary their former school

In plan is to set up a small Library within the school where the pupils can be borrowing text books and story books through a systematic model.

In the end, the Kedovo team had a long talk with the pupils of Ndurutu Primary School, they gave talks about our past, about us all growing up in the village, about us 'scurring' with open jerricans on the gullies of River Chania, about us and our dreams and where we are headed as a community.....about us and the journey of our village.
The names of the Kedovo team are on the 'wall of fame' at the school, our names hang there to remind the kids that there is hope in the village, and today the kids could see for sure there was hope....
They told the kids the stories of a far away land where our Partners Nicole and Heinz come from, and the kids in a far away village , the village of my birth were so thankful to these two amazing people who have and continue supporting our work.

Davie telling the story about Nicole and where she lives

And they listened and had hope......a hope of a better tomorrow

To my Partner, Sandtorkai Handel Papenhagen...thankyou for giving us a chance to tell the story of a far away village in the slopes of Mt. Kenya, thankyou for giving us a chance to tell Our Story Our Way.....

To the Roasters in Germany, who have been whole heartedly supporting our work, our sincere gratitude, remember our work is not finished, we have classrooms to build, Libraries to set up, more uniforms, books, learning materials to distribute....lets make it happen.
The Ndurutu story is a story worth remembering and repeating....help us tell the story.

We are currently offerring the Ndurutu coffee, late harvest 2013/ 2014 F.O.T Bremen- transport to other destination within Germany arrangable at a cost. 

Please contact Nicole Boedtger or Soni Schneidewind for samples, price quoatations and contracting.

The journey continues.....