September 20, 2008
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Ken Kierstead (Pura Vida board member) and I will depart for Oaxaca, Mexico on Monday to visit with Cooperative Yen Navan, Michiza, a cooperative that Pura Vida has been purchasing coffee from for years. The goal of our visit is to expand Pura Vida’s relationship with the cooperative and to better understand the needs of the farmers and their communities with the hope of creating ways that Pura Vida can better support the coffee farmers, their families, and the surrounding community.
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Cooperative Yen Navan, Michiza was founded in 1985 and consist of 946 members spread throughout 43 communities. Michiza started as a small organization regrouping organic coffee producers from various ethnic groups. Their name, Michiza, is an abbreviation of these five groups: Mixtecos, Chinantecos, Chatinos, Cuicatecos and Zapotecos. The farmers hoped that through the organization they would be able to stop the local intermediaries from manipulating the local price of coffee and exploiting them in the process. To learn more about Michiza, please visit http://www.puravidacoffee.com/michiza.php.
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We will spend the week with the leadership of the cooperative and visiting with individual farmers. I will attempt to keep you posted about the events of each day right here on our blog. Below are a few pictures from Michiza.
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Thanks for your support.
Sam Snyder – Program Director
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