The IWCA tackles gender inequity in accommodation of the specific needs of women in the communities which the organisation serves, including in Honduras through AMUCAFE, founded by Diana Osorto.

International Women in Coffee Alliance (IWCA) is a global organisation dedicated to the support, prosperity and wellbeing of women in coffee. IWCA is broken up by country and sometimes regions within each country. Gender equity looks different in different parts of the world, and fighting to achieve it works best when regional subgroups form and take a localised approach in their communities. The Honduran chapter of IWCA, Alianza de Mujeres en Café Honduras (AMUCAFE), was founded by Diana Osorto over a decade ago and officially became a non-profit in 2014. All the money brought into the organisation gets funnelled into the specific needs of the women in their communities, whether they are financial-, education-, or childcare-based needs.

Whilst ensuring AMUCAFE’s funding, Diana Osorto also must assess if male dominated donors align with the organisation’s values.

These days, Diana is the fundraiser-in-chief. Each chapter of IWCA is responsible for scraping together its own funding. The long-term goal is for AMUCAFE to become self-sufficient, where they have enough contract work to cover their bases and don’t have to ask for many donations. Donors often have their own agenda and come into a partnership with an idea of how to allocate funds. Most are run by men and many have ideals that uphold neo-colonialism, which is exactly the system AMUCAFE is working to get away from. Often, Diana finds herself at the crossroads of funding and ideals and has to turn down funding to uphold their ideals. Progress is long and slow in this line of work.

Through their own work, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray and Carla Gomez, align with the female dominated AMUCAFE, and vow that victims of oppression lead change thus putting women at the forefront of their organisations.

Organisations like AMUCAFE that have such a strong compassion for their community and the drive to see their mission through attract like-minded people. There are 400 women who make up AMUCAFE and 70 percent of them are producers. Many of the women involved in IWCA have had lots of different careers and their combined expertises fit together seamlessly to create a high-functioning organisation that can focus solely on the support of women in coffee-growing regions. Not all women involved with IWCA have developed careers in coffee, but many have been part of the supply chain in some form or another. An excellent example is the lead roaster at Joe Coffee Company in New York City, Amaris Gutierrez-Ray.

Amaris founded Women in Coffee Project (WICP) in New York City a year after taking a leadership roasting position at Joe Coffee Company. WICP was founded on similar principles to AMUCAFE and Amaris had been familiar with IWCA’s work for years prior to establishing her own advocacy organisation. In the development of WICP, Amaris felt strongly that the folks oppressed by power structures like capitalism and patriarchy should be the ones leading the movement for change. Theirs should be the voices speaking about their own needs and telling their own stories. Giving women a platform was an obvious function of the group, but getting others to listen is the other, harder half of that battle.

Amplifying female voices in the coffee sector is a powerful medium for change.

Amaris started interviewing women in the coffee supply chain to develop a better understanding of what it’s like to work as a woman in coffee in different areas of the world. In her research, Amaris met Carla Gomez, an advocate for AMUCAFE who spends her work days trying to connect the English-speaking world with the women cultivating coffee in Honduras. Carla fundamentally believes that women should be the ones telling their own stories, an ideal she shares with Amaris. Carla has been involved with AMUCAFE since 2009. Alongside her advocacy work, Carla was a travel agent on the Bay Islands of Honduras, where she spearheaded a project to get more resorts to serve good Honduran coffees by offering them tastings and opening their eyes to the breadth of quality available in the country. 

Amaris and Carla started brainstorming solutions to pandemic-related problems affecting women coffee workers in Honduras, which sparked an even larger conversation in the community. They hosted a virtual panel discussion with live Spanish-English translation so anyone from either language community could attend. Together the group posed big questions and bonded over their passion for coffee. This is what it’s all about for Amaris, Carla and Diana. It’s the reason they established advocacy groups in their respective communities to bring light to women’s issues in the coffee sector. Storytelling is a powerful medium to get a message across and these women are harnessing that power and using it for the betterment of women in coffee.

With time resources limited for females and men exploiting their hard work, AMUCAFE aims to provide credit and voice to women who are the backbone of the coffee sector.

Carla is particularly fascinated by communication and understands the power it has to get a message across. When describing the barriers women face in Honduras, especially women in coffee, Carla uses the metaphor of a silent hen. Each time a hen lays an egg, she announces it by letting out a long, loud cry, as if to say, “look at all the work I’ve put in for the prosperity of our community.” Honduran women in coffee have voices that are stifled by a cacophony of men speaking for them and making decisions on their behalf. They work diligently, but silently. The hours of unseen, unpaid labour these women put forth at home carries the coffee industry. It allows men the freedom to have a family, but focus on their careers. It would not be possible without them. 

In Latin America, women are on the hook for almost all domestic work in addition to their coffee work. Women do 98 percent of the critical processing––hulling, washing, fermenting, etc––which can impart a significant improvement in the quality of the coffee. There are hours upon hours of unseen, unpaid domestic labour that women in coffee diligently give so that the whole operation, both at home and at the farm, can go off without a hitch. Though women contribute invaluable work to coffee, their names are often left off of transparency reports. In these instances, AMUCAFE steps in and brings to light the names of women producers in their community so they receive due credit for their work. They connect coffee buyers with women in coffee directly so they can be sure they’re supporting women, not men making decisions on behalf of women. 

Market visibility is a pillar of IWCA’s overall mission to support women in coffee. Roasting companies have the luxury of staffing a green buyer whose job it is to research producers, study the market and travel to origin as needed to find the coffees they want to sell. Producers, especially women producers, have limited time, between juggling their coffee work with their domestic work, to spend time marketing themselves to specific roasters. Time is a valuable asset in the lives of working mothers and childcare is an extremely prevalent need that is deeply understood by the members, many of them being mothers. It’s not uncommon for AMUCAFE members to take turns watching each other’s children so that a few women from the group can attend classes about sensory and processing skills or financial literacy. Adding these skills to their repertoire can increase the value of their coffee over time and give them the tools to confidently make financial decisions for their businesses.

Historic gender suppression has meant women are in the backseat of the decision-making pyramid, where in Honduras for example, men dominate the creation of gender policies.

These skill sets and opportunities are incredibly valuable to women in coffee, but they shouldn’t be few and far between. In a perfect world, women would be raised with the assurance that they can run a business and be educated accordingly. A more equitable world may have nullified the necessity of movements like IWCA and AMUCAFE, but they serve a very important purpose in the lives of women in coffee. They are fighting for gender equity full-time, but it’s an uphill battle. The gender policies that are being written in Honduras right now are written by a board full of men. What should be oxymoronic is simply the status quo. Truly equitable gender policy cannot happen without women in the conversation. This is what AMUCAFE is up against.

One of the toughest parts of the job is convincing men to listen to them, let alone get on board with their policy ideas. However, the goal is not to fight with men, but to fight alongside them against gender inequities. The most successful operation will include male allies, but the groundwork will require getting men to see and understand the plight of women, have them be comfortable taking a backseat to let women speak on their own needs, and go to bat for them to turn the tables towards equity. Gazing at the horizon, Carla sees a tough future for the next generation of coffee farmers. They’ll be battling climate change and a scarcity of resources. The last thing they need is a gender divide that suppresses women’s ability to take control of their own lives. That will not breed prosperity. It will only hold back the uncapped potential of the next generation of coffee entrepreneurs.

AMUCAFE’s creation of strong organisational partnerships have enabled small but significant steps towards providing a springboard for their daughters to become leaders in the coffee industry.

The work AMUCAFE is doing now is moving the needle toward a future where women are not only part of the conversation but leading it. Small steps in the grand scheme are making this a reality. Through a partnership with the Rainforest Alliance and Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative of Mesoamerica, AMUCAFE has participated in graduating eight women from Emory University, created 1500 jobs for folks in agricultural and indigenous communities, and promoted political advocacy organisations that will centre women’s voices in discussions surrounding gender equity. If the goal is leaving the industry better than they found it, AMUCAFE members are gifting their daughters a springboard into the future as strong leaders of the coffee industry.