STRONG COFFEE: The Story of Café Femenino

Directed by Sharron Bates
Produced by Sharron Bates and Carmen Klotz
Beyond Your Eye Productions
48:00 minutes • 2007
Closed captioned
Available on VHS and DVD

Coffee. It is the second most valuable item of legal international trade after oil. Billions of us drink it every day, but how many of us really know much about the coffee we consume or the farmers who grow it?

There are thousands of coffee farms in Northern Peru, employing hundreds of thousands of people. Of those, approximately 30% are women. The attitudes towards Peruvian women in remote farming areas are shaped by the culture of machismo. 44% of women live in poverty and 70% have experienced some sort of violence. It is this repression that drove women to come up with an idea that would give them some financial independence from the men in their community and within their families. Their idea was to create Café Feminino, a women's coffee co-op. Café Femenino is a truly unique concept which is breaking the chains of machismo, improving relationships between women and men, uplifting families, increasing levels of education, improving quality of life, and helping women in need all over the world.

STRONG COFFEE is an informative look at what it takes to get coffee into your morning cup and what your coffee purchase means to the farmers toiling in the world's coffee belt. It is a story of hope, determination, universal love, and tremendous strength.

For more information please visit the STRONG COFFEE: The Story of Café Femenino website.

Subject(s): Agriculture, Community dynamics, Consumerism, Economics, Ethics, Fair trade, Human rights, Women–work