Live Zoom Event
Thursday, December 12

12:30pm Eastern | 11:30am Central | 9:30am Pacific

We are excited to invite you to join us for a unique, first-hand report-back from folks freshly returned from a visit to our coffee cooperative partners in Colombia. During the week of November 10th, Citizen Consumer members Sue Redlich and Terry Steele will join Equal Exchange worker-owners and representatives from two food co-op customers of EE for an on-the-ground learning experience like no other.

Equal Exchange has sponsored these delegations for nearly thirty years, and inevitably, they have become life-changing events for all involved. The experience includes information sessions to frame the political, social, and environmental context of the visit, farmer coop meetings to learn about their democratic structures & organic cultivation practices, a day or more harvesting coffee with members, and perhaps the most unique aspect, a 2-3 night homestay with coop members.

This delegation will visit one of our longest-standing Equal Exchange partner coops, Asprocafe Ingruma, in the Rio Sucio region of Colombia. The majority of the co-op’s 3,300 members are Embara Chambi indigenous people who live on four reserves on the outskirts of Riosucio. Women and youth have a high level of participation in the co-op, and women hold strong positions of leadership in the office. Both the trip and the report back itself promise to be engaging and eye-opening experiences. We hope you can join one of these two scheduled virtual meetings!