Creating Economic Empowerment Through Coffee w/ Vava Angwenyi

In this episode, Vava gives us the inside scoop on what it’s like to be a Kenyan producer in the coffee industry. She shares how local producers, farmers, and prospective entrepreneurs are kept from accessing fair pay and opportunities to participate in the coffee trade, because all of the major farmlands are owned by whyte companies. Her mission is to change this through creating sustainable equity, education, opportunity, and personalizing the experience of coffee, as most consumers have no idea where their coffee comes from. 

ABOUT WEEZE

Louiza Doran, known and referred to as Weeze, is a cis-het Amazigh* female identifying human who uses she/her/they/them pronouns. She’s known as a coach, podcast host, advocate, agent of change, strategist and educator (to name a few) but is ultimately a compassionate provocateur that is out to help folks uncover their path of possibility.  

ABOUT VAVA

In 2009, Vava Angwenyi started VAVA COFFEE – a Benefit Corporation (B-corp) with a Social enterprise model that exports, roasts and consults on coffee value chains, the organization aims to contribute to better future prospects for coffee communities and the industry as a whole. The company ensures sustainable livelihoods for the people and communities in which it works. Vava Angwenyi is also the co-founder and director business development & fundraising at GENTE DEL FUTURO (People of the Future). Gente Del Futuro formed in 2017 is an organization born out of a partnership between African Plantations Kilimanjaro, Vava Coffee Kenya and Oro Molido three private sector players within the coffee sector to tackle two of the main problems we face as an industry - Producer profitability and Next generation involvement. Gente Del Futuro’s focus is to amplify the voices of youth by creating economic empowerment, choices and sustainability for the coffee industry. The organization offers young people a unique and one-of-a-kind learning opportunity by fusing coffee cultures and knowledge from three different growing origins : Tanzania, Kenya and Colombia. Ms. Angwenyi is also a founding member of Pamoja - Direct Trade Coffee Collective, this is a UK registered community interest company that has been established as the international marketing and distribution division for its members, coffee farmers. It is focused on building direct, cost-effective and fair relationships between its farmers and ethically aware international roasters.

Vava holds a Masters degree-Msc in International Finance and Management from University of Groningen as well as Certificate in Global Asset Management from Warrington College of Business, University of Florida and a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics & Actuarial Science from University of Western Ontario- CANADA. Vava’s vision is to challenge the status quo and promote positive social disruption within the Coffee industry. This vision comes from an inborn Kenyan passion for coffee and a drive to promote the sustainable production of coffee within Kenya’s and the wider East African region by tracing the production of high quality coffee beans to the independent smallholder coffee farmer, who works day in and day out, against major obstacles and with meager resources to produce some of the world’s best tasting coffees, often without an understanding or appreciation of the final fruits of their labor.

Vava is a CQI trained and certified Q grader ​Ms. Vava Angwenyi ​was part of the ​2015 International Visitors Leadership Program a prestigious State Department sponsored program coordinated in conjunction with ​African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA)​and African women enterprise program ​International Visitors Leadership Program​.

Vava a Cordes fellow 2017 and Global Social Benefit Institute alumni 2016, also serves as an Advisory Committee member for the Specialty Coffee Association’s (SCA) sustainability council and is also part of the SCA’s Event’s site criteria Ad-hoc committee. ​In 2019 she was elected to serve on the SCA Board of Directors ​serving on the Finance and Sustainability Committees. In 2019 Vava Coffee was recognized as a ​Best for the world community Honoree ​- B Corp.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT

• While coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil, the industry was set up to keep the producers enslaved. 
• The Kenyan coffee trade still operates from the rules set in 1958 by colonial masters.
• The people that own the largest plantations where coffee is produced, are whyte companies.
• The problems Kenyan coffee producers face due to whytness running the markets, dictating the pricing, and dictating the terms and conditions.
• They purposely create barriers and make it hard for local entrepreneurs to get into the coffee business.
• Why Kenyans only consume 6% (used to be 3%) of coffee produced in Kenya and have to rely on the western world to drink the beans.
• How Vava got into the coffee industry after having been exposed to $20 bags of Kenyan coffee at places like Starbucks and Tim Hortons, while witnessing her grandma complain about how she's getting nothing for her coffee.
• How producer images are used purely for exploitation purposes.
• Consumers doing their due diligence in researching what really happens in producing countries in terms of labor, the processes, the farm inputs, that producers have to put, what picking season looks like. 
• How we can begin to be agents of change and pay more attention to what's happening in the world. 
• Connecting to our purpose and being willing to work and grow within it!

CALL TO ACTION

• Be more attentive about what's happening in the world
• Purchase Vava’s book & coffee

RESOURCES

• Coffee Milk Blood is a project and book inspired by Vava’s own experience as an African woman in the industry. The theme of the book touches on appropriate storytelling/depiction of producers - how they want to be seen beyond the coffee and as Women, the African woman, the culture of the place as well as underpinnings of Colonialism that are the structures we still operate within in our industry. The main and limited edition versions of the book will be a tool the industry needs, especially challenging the visual context often seen of coffee origins, producing countries, and the faces behind the coffee. 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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FOLLOW WEEZE TO STAY ENGAGED 

Website: https://www.accordingtoweeze.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/accordingtoweeze

The Academy (it’s like Patreon): https://www.accordingtoweeze.com/the-academy

 

FOLLOW VAVA TO STAY ENGAGED

Website: swww.vavacoffeeinc.com

Website: www.coffeemilkblood.com

Website: https://www.gente-delfuturo.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vavacoffeekenya

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gentefuturo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeemilkblood