Coffee for Peace

 A simple coffee bean bringing world peace. Sound outrageous?  Well that is the grand plan if the PeaceBuilders Community Incorporated (PBCI) in Davao City, Mindanao has its way. Beginning only ten years ago as a presence among parties in the long running wars in the southern Philippines, they currently have Peace and Reconciliation Communities spread throughout the Philippines. Even if this was all that visionary Dann Pantoja and the team at PBCI would have accomplished this would have been admirable.

 

However, connecting the values of justice and peace to a fair trade coffee business has made this venture down right remarkable. In ten short years Coffee for Peace (the entrepreneurial arm of the vision) has vastly increased what rural coffee farmers receive for their beans while encouraging the producer communities in a whole range of integrated skills. From tending coffee plants, to reforestation, to financial management skills to training baristas, the business acumen of Joji Pantoja has made this the social impact enterprise to watch. Indeed this merger of peace and coffee has attracted much attention earning Coffee for Peace numerous awards and notoriety from the United Nations, Price-Waterhouse Cooper, The Asian Development Bank and more.

 

With so much doom and gloom the world, I am inspired and humbled to have seen this story close up from the beginning as PBCI and Coffee for Peace make the world just a little more harmonious . . . one cup at a time.