Caravan Coffee Fundraiser!
What a great opportunity to make a difference!
Grant Description:
The rural community of Machucara is in the Lambayeque region in Peru. Located high in the Andeans and in an area of extreme poverty, where the biggest problem to ensure the cultivation of food and coffee, is water shortage.
Machucara is a community of small-farm producers of coffee and food that need to improve the productivity of their crops and pastures to improve their living conditions. Climate change is seriously affecting coffee and food cultivation. Rainfall is increasingly scare and has been reduced to only four months per year. With the support of the Café Femenino Foundation, crop diversification is being promoted with the incorporation of cacao on the family plot. The lack of water has had an adverse impact on their coffee crops and, ultimately, their family income.
Through the system of water channels the community has been able to distribute water quotas to the 23 Café Femenino coffee producers in a way that reduces flooding and distributes the water as needed for crop production. This request is to build small water reservoirs (pilcas) that will benefit 4 or 5 families and that allows them to store their annual quota of water, as well as the rainfall. An irrigation system will also be installed that will allow for sufficient water in the times of coffee flowering and deliver water needed during coffee and food productions. Sprinkler system water management will improve the quality of all crops and improve the quality of life. Funds requested will be used to purchase the reservoir liner, pipes for irrigation and some technical assistance. 4-5 families (20 people) will directly benefit from this water reservoir, storage and irrigation system and it will indirectly benefit the whole community from the improvement of their food diet to the increased production of vegetables, grains and fruits reducing malnutrition.
The Café Femenino Foundation has supported this community over the years by providing funds coffee drying patios; education materials to the kindergarten and pre-school children; raised cooking surfaces and smoke ventilation systems to help reduce respiratory disease, as well as providing emergency food supplies during the pandemic when the community was in isolation. This small community of coffee producers in the remote community of Machucara is requesting at total of $4,025 for the materials needed for the water reservoirs and the community members will provide the labor needed to manually dig and prepare the location, lay the liner and pipes to move the water from the source to the reservoir and then to the coffee farms and organic vegetable garden. Any donation would be greatly appreciated.
*select “Water Reservoir Project – Caravan Coffee” as the donation category.
