Pueblo a Pueblo Pilot — Developing Young Leaders For Tomorrow’s Coffee Communities

The coffee industry is facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Investing in the youth of today’s rural coffee communities will help secure the future. Pueblo a Pueblo is launching a new pilot as part of its Organic Gardens Project to train promising young people to become Youth Leaders whose leadership and professionalism will foster future generations of small-holder farmers. Young people from coffee farming families have few career options besides small-scale coffee farming. But they cannot succeed without mastering the basics of agriculture, and they cannot flourish without basic educational skills, including literacy and numeracy. Pueblo a Pueblo believes its Organic Gardens Project is the perfect place to begin expanding local youth leadership capacity. The pilot involves identifying promising Local Youth and training them in leadership skills, including communication, community outreach and partnership building. Once trained, the Youth Leaders will work with local students, teachers and parents to ensure and expand the use of effective agricultural techniques to the household level and identify future youth leaders.

For more information about this initiative and to find out how you can become a partner, please contact Rosemary Trent (rtrent@puebloapueblo.org).