El Socorro Early Childhood Education
Contact name: Brian Cockman
Email: brian@roostercomm.biz
Phone: 336.210.3806
Organization Name: Cafe Perfecto
Project URL: www.cafeperfecto.com
Project: El Socorro Early Childhood Education
Location: Colombia
Additional information on location of project: City of Amaga
Projected Impact: 25,000
Project Description
Amagá is a town of 25,000 people, and it is nestled among the Andes Mountains in the country of Colombia. Our family owned coffee business, Agro-Mais, has been a part of this community for the last 26 years. Each year, we employ hundreds of seasonal workers to harvest our coffee crop and maintain a permanent full-time staff of 30 individuals. Our coffee bean pickers work hard to produce perfect coffee to people around the word, thus the name Café Perfecto. Supporting them so that they can support their families is crucial to the local economy. Each year, we pump more than two million dollars back into the local coffers in the forms of salaries, health benefits, and taxes.
We are civically engaged and aim to be good corporate citizens. With this is mind, we are very proud of our recent donation to the community, a 5,000 square feet building. An early childhood educational program will be established within this building in the year 2015. It will provide the children of Amagá, ages zero to five years of age, the tools that they need to grow and develop. It also gives the parents the opportunity to learn parenting techniques with a focus on health, nutrition, and education. Parents who work on our farm can rest easy knowing that their children are being taken care of by trained professionals with backgrounds in early childhood development. The school is expected to open some time in 2015.
This building donation is just one way that Café Perfecto supports the local community in Columbia, but to us, it is perhaps the most important way to make a difference. Helping children and their families thrive is what being a good corporate citizen is all about. We are always looking for ways to improve the lives of our coffee farm workers. Starting with their children is a step in the right direction.
We leave you with one of our favorite quotes by the late Nelson Mandela. He said, “Education is the most powerful weapon with which you can use to change the world.” At Café Perfecto, we could not agree more.
What You Can Do to Help
We would like the readers to donate lightly used clothing fitted for infant children up to five years old. Donations of educational materials, in either English or Spanish, which will be used by the children when the school opens in 2015, are also gratefully accepted. We are currently in the process of setting up a warehouse that will serve as the location where people can send these items.
