Peruvian coffee brand Café Femenino lifts women out of poverty and submission
From the start, I aimed to involve marginalized women. We traveled four to eight hours along steep, narrow roads to reach them. The rustling of trees and bird songs became our only companions.
- 9 hours ago
October 27, 2024
THE ANDES, Peru — I grew up in Cajamarca, the daughter of peasant parents. At seven years old, we left the countryside. My parents sought better educational opportunities for us in Chiclayo, the capital of Lambayeque. Later, while studying sociology at university, I met my husband. In time, I became the co-founder of Café Femenino. Our goal was to address the extreme poverty, illiteracy, and violence facing rural communities like ours. These places often lacked essential infrastructure like roads, schools, and hospitals. My project became a way to empower women and transform lives.
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Connecting with coffee farmers in vulnerable regions
Helping people living in extreme poverty became a dream we held close to our hearts, and we set out to achieve it. We began by engaging with coffee farming organizations in the most vulnerable regions. After completing our studies, we formed an NGO to raise funds, helping producers improve their yields and their family’s quality of life.
From the start, I aimed to involve marginalized women. We traveled four to eight hours along steep, narrow roads to reach them. The rustling of trees and bird songs became our only companions. When rain fell in short bursts, it flooded the muddy trails. Afterwards, the air grew warm and humid. The experience filled me with a sense of freedom. My imagination wandered along the green slopes and through the low clouds surrounding us.
When we arrived at the quiet, remote villages, they brimmed with ancestry, creativity, and potential. I often saw women in vibrant clothing, leading mules loaded with coffee. The air was rich with the scent of wet earth. Despite their obvious strength, women in these coffee-growing communities faced challenges. Those challenges trapped them in poverty, with little control over their finances. In these male-dominated spaces, the women possessed little decision-making power.
We started holding workshops in the community, offering small funds to engage women and understand their needs. Initially, we focused on women’s rights and empowerment, but attendance remained low. The few who came arrived shyly, their eyes downcast as they whispered amongst themselves. They sat in the back, barely participating. Their illiteracy revealed the barrier they faced in lack of education – something we needed to overcome.
Empowering women and learning from communities
Facing limited resources, families in the communities often faced a choice. They could not send all their children to school, so they often selected the son, never the daughter. Women faced physical, emotional, and sexual violence, along with severe marginalization. The community treated them as objects. They rarely spoke and when they did, they doubted their words mattered. As girls, they stopped attending far-away schools. Once married, they needed their husband’s permission just to visit a health center.
By 14 or 15 years old, they begin having children. By 35 years old, they appear much older, often suffering from osteoporosis and losing teeth due to lack of proper care. I remember after giving a talk, a timid and embarrassed woman came to me in tears. She said she never realized she had no teeth. It broke my heart. In these communities, midwives charge less for delivering a girl than a boy. When a girl is born, they tell the mother she birthed a future cook. When she delivers a boy, they say this is a future field worker.
At times I asked the women, “Who owns the house, the land, and the harvest?” They always answered, “The man.” Their service centered around domestic work and child rearing, which generates no income. Slowly, more women began attending our meetings, gathering on benches in the improvised meeting space on a small plot of land. We started by discussing their rights and helping them discover their sense of self-worth.
I vividly remember the transformation on their faces, and it moved me deeply. Chills ran through me as the word “rights” resonated with them. Perhaps they heard it before, but for the first time, they truly understood it. The room buzzed with new energy like a powerful, transformative force, as if something vital came to life.
Organizing workshops and helping women access land ownership
In some meetings, we invited both men and women, encouraging them to reflect on why we behave the way we do. We wanted to help the women break free from their adopted roles and to show men could take on domestic tasks too. However, advocating for women’s rights often raised suspicion among men. To many of them, exercising their rights meant smoking, drinking, and mistreating women. One man expressed his concern with a metaphor: “Men are the head, but sometimes women want to be the hat.”
Later, we organized a workshop where we drew a large clock on cardboard and asked participants to mark the hours they started and finished work. The results seemed striking. Men worked eight to 10 hours a day, Monday to Friday or Saturday. The women worked 12 to 13 hours a day, seven days a week. During the coffee harvest season, the women’s workdays stretched to 15 or 16 hours. They managed meals, homes, children, and gardens. Everyone looked surprised by the stark difference, and the room fell into a heavy silence that afternoon.
Women’s access to land ownership remained a historic challenge. Owning land means more rights, but most peasant women had none, despite working from dawn to dusk. Men owned the land, received the compensation, and often spent it at the bar. It felt painful to witness. We realized we needed to find a way to get that money into women’s hands. We knew that when women received compensation, they rushed to the store, not the bar, to buy food for their families.
Women as trailblazers: Sabina’s farm leading by example
We aimed to improve the living conditions we witnessed. After several workshops, we promoted women’s involvement and launched a coffee brand. The brand’s success helped men recognize the value of this work, leading some to transfer farm ownership to women. This felt like a major step in the process. Leading the farm gave women access to land ownership and the market, empowering them economically and fostering independence.
Gradually, the community improved. Roads built by the workers replaced long four-hour walks with quicker motorcycle rides. The transformation inspired us. Women involved in the project began speaking up, their voices strong and confident. At meetings, women started talking about their right to study, work, and leave the house. Men, too, began expressing their right to show emotions, to be tender, and cry. People embraced change and found happiness in it.
Sabina’s farm became one of our models. It sits at 1,650 meters above sea level, where fog meets vibrant green coffee plantations. At dawn, the air fills with the rich aroma of freshly harvested coffee, a scent full of history, effort, and resilience. Given the challenges rural women faced, including violence and subordination, this journey is long. However, Sabina shows how far women in these communities have come in their fight for independence and equality.
Sabina’s empowerment inspires others: Lily and Erlita follow her lead
In our conversations, Sabina avoids blaming men. She understands their behavior stems from generations of upbringing. Her husband battled alcoholism, leading to violence in their family. I recall one afternoon when her husband approached me, admitting he realized the truth. He said, “We cannot both be partners. Someone must stay home with the children.” With tears in his eyes, he added, “It should be Sabina. We need to transfer the land ownership to her.”
In that beautiful moment, Sabina felt valued and respected, becoming one of the first women to make real changes at home. In rural homes, bathrooms typically sit 60 meters away from the house. This creates serious issues, especially when it rains. The toilet becomes inconvenient and unsanitary. Sabina and her husband decided to build a bathroom inside their home. She became the first in the community to replace the dirt floor with a proper one.
This empowerment pushed Sabina to keep making changes at home. She once cooked over an open fire, which filled the house with smoke, harming her family’s health. With her husband and children, they transformed the home, and her new kitchen became a family gathering space. Each change came from her desire to improve her family’s living conditions, inspiring others in the community.
Step by step, the quality of life improved, and each cup of coffee became a symbol of resilience, freedom, and hope. Lily is a coffee grower’s daughter, surrounded by coffee plantations since birth. Lily’s work has taken her to many villages. Today, she earns money from her labors but also participates in financial decisions. She even considers sending her daughters to the community-built school, where nearly 50 percent of the students are now girls.
Female leadership brews in every cup of Café Femenino
Today, a local farmer named Erlita proudly welcomes her new granddaughter into a community transformed by Café Femenino. Thanks to this initiative, the girl will grow up with access to education, just like her brother, in a place that values women. Erlita feels fulfilled knowing she helped create more opportunities for future generations.
Paula, an indigenous leader, also dedicates herself to coffee cultivation. She and her husband live in Naranjo Alto, Chiñama, where Paula’s leadership now empowers other women. When I arrived in the community, Erlita rallied the few women willing to become partners. One change led to another and the community transformed. Women’s empowerment improved family diets, helped children overcome malnutrition, enabled home improvements, and ensured daughters received educations. Paula’s daughter, for example, became the community’s first teacher.
Today, Sabina, Lily, and Paula lead the coordination of over 1,000 coffee producers. Their hard work culminates in the annual Coffee Festival, where they gather the final coffee beans of the season. The celebration includes music, dancing, and expressions of gratitude to Mother Earth. The festival concludes with a communal meal, symbolizing abundance and unity. Following the festivities, they hold workshops on farm management and coffee quality.
Café Femenino’s impact remains evident in better education and health outcomes for children. That impact has fostered homes rooted in respect and communication. It has reduced violence. Women, once invisible, now hold leadership roles, serve on boards, and act as delegates, promoters, and inspectors. They participate as equals. Each cup of coffee tells their stories, celebrating their courage and the possibility of a brighter future.
