Café Femenino Cecanor Espresso, Peru (Organic, Fair Trade)

While women have always been crucial to coffee production in Peru, men traditionally held the economic power. In 2004, 464 female coffee producers in Peru united to change this dynamic and take a step toward empowerment. They decided to separate their coffee production from men to gain visibility and a voice inside their community. Working in partnership with OPTCO, they developed a never-before-existing market for women-produced coffee to serve as an important vehicle for social change and the empowerment of poor, marginalized women coffee farmers. Since then, the Café Femenino movement now includes thousands of women farmers from nine countries across the world.

Since their first meeting in 2004, the women of the Café Femenino Peru Program have marshaled widespread social change into their communities. By overcoming a variety of barriers— including inferior societal status due to gender prejudice, adverse living conditions, and lack of self-esteem stemming from insecurities about their lack of formal education—the women have successfully stood up against generations of gender inequity.