Thanksgiving Coffee Company

I understand the perspective of advocating an across the board boycott to induce economic hardship in a country that depends on money from exports as a means to send a strong “message” about this homophobic and hateful legislation. But not all trade in Uganda can be considered on the same plane. The economic reality in Uganda today is deeply rooted in a history of exploitative trade by multinational corporations. Fair Trade seeks to help support producers to overcome that history and in so doing, encourages community led development initiatives that promote education, health care, and access to better infrastructure. This type of bottom up growth and development positions communities to better respond to the kind of legislation we are seeing in Uganda today. Meanwhile, it should not go without mentioning that much of the support of this bill has been driven by organizations in the United States. It is not the Fair Trade farmers in Peace Kawomera that are the voices on this issue.

Our stance with respect to your suggestion of boycotting this coffee and cutting off this community that we have worked so closely with for five years is that we don’t believe that is the best way to combat the current anti-gay bill being discussed. In fact, we would even more emphatically support the critical work, message, and example that the Peace Kawomera Cooperative is setting. Each day these farmers choose tolerance as their way forward. The children of farmers are seeing that peace is a solution and a path to a brighter future. Supporting this Cooperative promotes the growth of a strong base of citizenship that can see beyond differences (whether that be based in cultural, ethnic, racial, gender or sexual preference diversity) and is successfully collaborating for real economic development.

Please consider the implications of what “direct action” in this case looks like. Going after a group laying the foundation for a more tolerant Uganda won’t solve the problem on the table. However, we encourage everyone to speak out against this proposed bill.

You can sign a petition here: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5712/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1309

2009 was a busy year for the Mirembe Project and 2010 is shaping up to be even busier. A feature in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, new computers for the PK Cooperative management, and a showcase of Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” coffee at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City has gotten this year off to a rolling start. This project continues to grow, build, and change and you are an integral part of it. Thank you for your continued support.

PKC Gets New Computers

In December, I sent an appeal to some of our supporters asking that they consider donating money to the Cooperative to support the purchase of new computers for PKC’s growing staff. This was a unique request from Thanksgiving Coffee. Ordinarily, we don’t have channels to manage supporters’ charitable donations. However, in this case there was a very specific need from the Cooperative and we were able to coordinate a community leader to spearhead this effort. Many thanks to Debbie in San Jose for being the central point of organization and for the final effort to make sure the money made it to Atlanta in time to be carried to Uganda. Six communities came together to support this fundraising effort. We were successful in raising $885, enough to purchase two new desktop systems for the Coop’s seven person staff!

On January 31st, a friend to Thanksgiving Coffee Company as well as the PK Coop, carried $455 to Uganda and later this week $430 more will be wired from Evanston, IL.

We are so grateful to the folks that came forward to support this effort: the Jewish Reconstructionist Community of Evanston, the Unitarian Universalists Congregation in Santa Rosa, Congregation Hakafa in Winnetka, the Center for Spiritual Living in San Jose, Temple Beth Hatfiloh in Olympia, University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and a few individuals.

On behalf of the folks at the Cooperative, many many many thanks! These new computers will aid in significant improvements in operations and organization.

Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” featured at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival is an annual event in Nevada City. Over the course of three days, hundreds of environmentally focused films are shown - from features like Food, Inc. to smaller independent work such as Tapped (a compelling film highlighting issues with the plastic water bottle industry and water rights). Thanksgiving Coffee Company was approached to be a sponsor and we realized this festival was a great fit and a great location to promote Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” coffee as well as the trailer for the upcoming documentary “Delicious Peace Grows in a Uganda Coffee Bean” by independent film makers Ellen Friedland and Curt Fissel.

Mirembe Kawomera Delicious Peace coffee was served all weekend at five concession venues around town and the trailer was shown three times with Jenais and Ben available to speak briefly at two of the showings. The audience was enthusiastic about the coffee, the project, and the trailer.

Learn more about the festival and view the four minute trailer that was edited specifically for Wild & Scenic 2010.

The Music of PKC Highlighted in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine

For the last few years, our friend, Rabbi Jeffrey Summit from Tufts University, has made three trips to visit the farmers at the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. One primary focus has been field recording the music of PKC’s coffee farmers. Rabbi Summit recently wrote a piece for Smithsonian Folkways Magazine about his work. It’s a great article about music as a means to communicate information, some of the challenges of trying to record in the field, as well as the tremendous labor required by the farmers. Below is an excerpt from his piece but please take a look at the full article:

“There is only one way for an excellent cup of Mirembe Kawomera coffee to get to my kitchen in Massachusetts, and it starts with a farmer in eastern Uganda walking into the field, looking carefully at a coffee tree, and picking the scattered coffee cherries that have ripened. Time is of the essence: cherries must be picked within a three–to–four–day window of ripeness. After picking, the cherries are sorted, washed, hand–pulped, dried, picked over, and bagged to be taken to the cooperative office. My fieldwork has made me acutely aware of this web of connection between us and coffee farmers in Uganda…”
- “Mirembe Kawomera (Delicious Peace) Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda” Jeffrey Summit, Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, Winter 2010

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In my unique position of creating a person-to-person market for Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” I get lots of suggestions for growth strategy. “Do you know who you should really talk to? (Fill in the blank with famous celebrity-activist name).” Sure. I’d love to talk to that person, just tell me how to reach them.

Early last week, my mother suggested I get in touch with Brother Ali, an amazing hip hop artist whose work I’ve been following since 2004. She had heard an interview with Brother Ali on NPR and, like so many of his fans, was drawn to his thoughtful messaging about loving ourselves, our neighbors, and promoting peace. The values on which the Mirembe project has developed and Brother Ali’s positive messages certainly have a lot in common. I thanked her for the suggestion and then went about my business. How could I actually reach him?

Historically, this project has had little success cold calling big name people. I went to Ali’s website and checked out his tour schedule for the promotion of his new album Us – one I had already bought and had been listening to (the track Crown Jewel particularly) on repeat for the better part of a week. On Friday, October 16, he was going to be performing in Santa Cruz (not exactly a stone’s throw from Fort Bragg but a feasible location nonetheless). I had never seen Brother Ali live, he would be performing with other Rhymesayers artists: Tokie Wright and Evidence of Dilated Peoples. Best case scenario I would maybe get a minute of Ali’s time to tell him about the work we were doing. Worst case scenario I’d catch some underground hip-hop.

The five hour drive to Santa Cruz was well worth the show. It can be hard to find great hip hop performances these days. Beats are over-produced, MC’s are arrogant, and rhymes lack substance….this show had none of that. BK-One spun great beats all night and Tokie, Evidence and Brother Ali all rocked the mic.

Best still was that all of those guys came right out to chat up fans when the show was over. And Brother Ali took my hand and gave me his full attention for a few minutes (in spite of being surrounded by adoring fans making all kinds of requests for autographs, photographs, hand shakes etc). He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about our work and the project. He encouraged me to post to his site and said he would try to get in touch - so far no response to my post yet. Even if nothing comes of it, I really have to give Ali a lot of respect for his sincerity and focus and messaging. We would all be better people if we listened to his words and tried to put them into action in our lives.

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