Slavery, Slavery and more Slavery...

This is where it begins to hit home for me...here is some rather painful information.

Coffee Slavery

• Child labour is a major part in the production of coffee beans in Guatemala, Columbia and the Ivory Coast. 
• Even if child labour is not the main labour, workers are exploited by the coffee farm owners sometimes receiving only 1% of what their bosses receive. In some Guatemalan coffee farms, workers have to produce 100 pounds of coffee before being paid $3, in three days. 
•  With commercial coffee machines pumping out cups of coffee at such a massive rate, the appropriate infrastructure must be in place to feed them. Most coffee plantations are located in less developed areas with Brazil and the Ivory Coast being notable providers. 
• The large coffee corporations pay the plantation owners somewhere in the region of $10,000 for a harvest. This same harvest will go on to sell for nearly $75,000 in the west – a 750% return on investment. The constant underpaying of plantation owners has increasingly encouraged more and more inhumane tactics to try and make enlargement. 
• Farmers, unable to turn a profit in recent years, have refused to pay their labourers, and instead kept them working without pay through beatings, intimidation and threats of death. 

Conditions 

• Much of the labour is bonded labour. With few resources to meet daily needs, and no alternative sources of credit available, parents are often forced to pledge their children’s labour as payment or collateral on a debt. While parents may assume their children will be able to repay the debt out of future earnings, a combination of low wages and high interest rates often make repayment impossible and the child becomes bonded indefinitely. 
• Children ranging from the ages of 7-16 work long hours which sometime add up to 80 hours a week – forced to carry heavy loads and working with dangerous tools like machetes.
•  When children fail the expectations of the farm owners, they are often beat with bicycle chains and whips.
•  Coffee kids pick the coffee by hand and are exposed to toxic chemicals and pesticides that are harmful to their health and the environment. 

      The circumstances and conditions described above are ones which you wouldn't wish even on your greatest enemy. We are all humans and deserve our human rights. Who's fighting for these people and their rights? Or is this becoming one of those harsh realities which is deeply painful to watch yet YOU - as an individual - don't take a stand and object. I hope not. I encourage every person reading this to get involved and try make a change in this world. One act of kindness at a time. We can be the difference.

Please leave your comments below. 

Coffee & Slavery - How?

Do you know the connection? Here are a few very eye-opening facts...at least for me they were!

Coffee Production & Consumption

• It’s simple: Drink Coffee = Do things faster with more energy.
• Coffee is a brewed beverage with a strong flavour prepared from the roasted seeds of the ‘coffea’ plant. The beans are found in coffee ‘cherries’, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries; primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa.
• Coffee is the leading source of caffeine consumption in the US, and is the world’s second most popular drink after water.
• On average, coffee drinkers will spend $164.71 per year on coffee.
• Today, US coffee drinkers consume approximately 3.1 cups per day on average and 52% of Americans over the age of 18 drink coffee every morning. On top of that, 30% of the population drinks coffee occasionally, meaning that over 80% of Americans consume.
• The sheer popularity of coffee and the profitability of the coffee industry are almost unfathomable in its size and scale. The coffee industry is a 10 billion dollar industry that has fostered trade between desperate countries since the colonial era. 

Modern Day Slavery

• 27 million people are slaves worldwide, more than at any other time in the world; and 8.4 million are child.
• Types of slavery include: bonded labour, sex trafficking, forced labour, factories exploitation, slavery by descent and in some cases, forced.
• According to the International Labour Organisation, 250 million children are at work, and 120 million of these children work full time in slave or bonded labour.
• The worst offenders of these enslaved children are the cocoa (chocolate) and coffee industries – with 70% of the world’s coffee being harvested by enslaved.
• They have to endure long hours, low pay, poor living conditions; and have no of escaping because there’s no other work and are exploited.

Sources - http://www.professorshouse.com/Food-Beverage/Beverages/Hot-Drinks/Articles/Coffee-Facts-   and-Statistics/

Is Fair-trade as fair as it sounds?

Why care about Fair-trade?

When looking at different organisations to donate some of Freedom Cups profits to help and abolish slavery there were many options to choose from. The first and most obvious choice was Fair-trade however as we delved deeper into the benefits of Fair-trade we realised the many downfalls that were counteractive to developing nations.

What are these downfalls?

Fair-trade in an effort to keep their image of helping the small guys do not allow their members to grow their farms beyond a certain level and must stay as a family business. This stops the opportunity of growth beyond a certain point which means that those who are trying to escape poverty may never be able to under Fair-trade.

To become a fairtrade member it is not easy, there is more supply than demand therefor you must bring a new willing costomer to join according to the Institute of Public Affairs. The The Institute of Economic Affairs report also states ". The minimum charge for certification for the smallest group (fewer than 50 producers) applying for certification of their first product is approximately £1,570 in the first year followed by an annual recertification fee of around £940" that is almost $2500 Australian dollars in the first year and almost $1500 AUD for every year after that, ridiculous figures for a struggling cocoa farmer to caugh up.

A study in Finland that can be accessed here found that most of the profits that from the premium on Fair-trade coffee did not go to the growers. In fact just 12% of the profits went to grower.

This video explains some of these problems

So what do should you do?
Don't completely avoid Fair-trade as it does guarantee that its products are slavery free and it has helped  farmers keep there farms alive. However when donating money we believe there are more proactive ways to abolish slavery and help with third world problems one such way is donating to Free the Slaves

Our conversations with coffee shop owners

The approach and pitch

When assessing the viability of our business it was necessary to test our initial market capture assumptions. We did this by informally approaching ten coffee shop owners in the local area to pitch the idea of us giving them coffee cups for free. Invariably the first thing they would ask was “what’s the catch?”. We would continue to explain that we were making a small profit on each cup by selling advertising space to companies to promote their brand, and that the owners in turn would totally cut out the expense of coffee cups and lids. At this point they were very interested, however still skeptical. We then explained to the owners that part of our proceeds will go to our social cause of ‘Free the Slaves’ and that by aligning themselves with us, they too are helping in the fight against slave labor.

The results?

We found that seventy percent of the owners would align themselves with us. We asked each of them what the main draw card to our business was and three reasons resonated. The first being not paying for coffee cups and lids, as they highlighted any cut in cost that doesn’t reduce quality of the product or service is a good cost cut. The second being that they genuinely cared about our cause and wanted to help. And the third being that by having our cause on their cups, it presented a good image for their business that could hopefully attract and retain new customers.

Conversely, the other thirty percent of the owners said that they would not partner with us. When we respectfully asked why they wouldn’t align themselves with they gave us only two reasons. The first reason they gave was that they already had a print on their cup advertising their own brand. The second reason was given by only one owner, he believed that the advertising on our cups would be tacky.

Our conclusion

At a seventy percent adoption rate, we were very confident in regards to ‘Freedom Cups’ potential. We found that each coffee shop currently using blank cups would use our cups, whereas each coffee shop currently using already branded cups would not. Therefore, we have decided to now target vendors with blank coffee cups.

Why did we choose to align ourselves with ‘Free the Slaves’?

We believe ‘Free the Slaves’ is an organisation that exists for the betterment of humanity. We believe their methods of marketing taps into our new generation and they have great potential to create a social movement that can make a significant difference in the fight against human slavery. Through our alliance with ‘Free the Slaves’, we aim to make connections with their large and dedicated pool community of followers to further build our brand.

They effectively utilize connection marketing through sharing videos online, connecting customers with the brand and using social media. They use a surprise effect by portraying shocking messages through buzz marketing using interactive media capturing the awful things that slaves endure.

Most of the money ‘Free the Slaves’ acquires goes into the cause. Due to their small marketing budget they use guerrilla-marketing techniques by investing a lot of time, energy and imagination into generating buzz through thought provoking content such as videos.

‘Free the Slaves’ uses the four important publishing tools; blog, wiki, forum, video sharing to deliver up to date content, which provides social interaction via highly accessible sources. ‘Free the Slaves’ uses social media sources like Twitter and Facebook to share current news and content, they make regular calls to action and interact with their followers. They retweet, reply and add input into discussions that occur online.

Through the use of their social media they meet all ‘10 laws of Social Media Marketing’ as they: listen to followers/connections, have a focused brand, have quality followers/connections, show patience, create content the followers want to share, build relationships with industry affiliates, add valuable content to conversations with followers and acknowledge followers that reach out.

‘Freedom Cups’ shares the same message as ‘Free the Slaves’ and, because of the aforementioned marketing methods, they have they have the most potential to amplify our message, increase our following and bring more attention to us by going viral.

What is the organisation 'Free the Slaves' and what do they do?

What is ‘Free the Slaves’?

‘Free the Slaves’ is a non-government, not for profit organisation and lobby group that was formed in 2001 with the aim to abolish slavery.

Their core values are; all people have the right to be free from slavery, all people have the right to realise their true potential, committing to supporting sustainable solutions, strategies based on accurate research, seeking guidance from local and regional anti-slavery programs all over the world, and being transparent with finances.

Their core purpose is to abolish slavery and liberate all slaves across the planet through sustainable methods.

Their target visionary goal, or BHAG, is to end slavery in 25 years by uniting together as one.

How the plan to attain their goal?

The two barriers currently stopping the planet eradicating slavery are public awareness and money allocated. Through using world class research and enthralling stories of slavery all over the planet, ‘Free the Slaves’ convince powerful and powerless that the world can be rid of slavery.

Who are they targeting to convince and why?

Every government has legislation banning slavery, however as slavery exists, they are not enforcing these laws. The solution is governments appointing an anti-slavery ambassador to coordinate anti-slavery efforts with both the government and other anti-slavery organisations.

The United Nations and other international organisations have legislation in place combating slavery, however they rarely take action. The solution is that the United Nations must legislate their laws, similarly to the way they do with weapons of mass destruction.

Consciously or not, businesses all over the world use slave made materials and commodities. The solution is to rid all slave made materials and commodities from supply chains and to make conscious decisions to not purchase goods that may have been derived from slave labour.

Once a city is of rid of slaves it must be kept that way. Ensuring a city stays slavery free will consist of maintaining six elements. Keep raising public awareness, drive home the message, having trained professionals combating slavery on the streets, providing excellent support to freed slaves, stamping out slave made products from the local economy and frequently recognizing the achievement of a slave free city.

You can help free the slaves too. Alert authorities if you see any suspicious behaviour. Spread the message, raise awareness and join our cause. Donations to ‘Free the Slaves’ go a long way.

Recycle Your Cups

There are tons and tons of land fill developing each year from people not recycling their coffee cups. Think about how many coffees you have, now imagine the build up of waste it would develop after a year. 

You are not the only one who drinks coffee, so imagine one million of you developing coffee cup land fill. 

You make a difference!

So Please!

Recycle your coffee cups!