LYF VENTURES...in brief...

Young Ethical Entrepreneurs

Working with a local community based organisation in West Yorkshire (the Pakistani Youth Forum) and a local authority, we have established a group of young people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds – who would not normally socialise with each other -  from some of the poorest areas. The programme’s content is entirely youth-led and links them with youth peers from a producer community in a developing country that the LYF has already worked with.

These young people are now learning about the principles of ethical and fair trading, about international development and about a business approach which can benefit entire communities rather than just individual entrepreneurs. 

The group have set up their own ethical trading enterprise, developed their own product range, been exposed to successful ethical entrepreneurs and are testing the new fair trade enterprise Schools Curriculum materials with the group, created by our friends at the Co-operative College UK.

During the last 2 months the group has:

• Raised awareness of Fair Trade amongst West Yorkshire’s Muslim community by holding an Eid Fair Trade Party, attracting 300 people.
• Managed Fairtrade delegate refreshments and sold their own ‘Ethical Christmas Gift packs’ at the Transitions Towns North conference and at the local Holme Valley Fair Trade Fashion Show 
• Been asked by their local authority to carry out a Fair Trade Audit

1)     We need more funding to create more of these groups. You can donate to us by visiting Money

2)     Entrepreneurs/ businesses interested in getting involved, we can send you our full ‘Young Ethical Entrepreneur Prospectus and Business Plan’  contact us

 “Muslim communities in the UK have been slow to become involved in ethical trade. So it was amazing to see a diverse group of young people working together to raise awareness about Fair Trade amongst Huddersfield’s Muslim community. All credit to the Lorna Young Foundation for doing this.  I hope they can work with young people elsewhere in the country.” (Chair of Manchester Muslim-Jewish Forum)

Creating the Future of Fair Trade?...The Oromo Coffee Company (OCC)

In Autumn 2008, the LYF was approached by a group of Oromo Ethiopian refugees, recently settled in Greater Manchester and wanting to develop a self-help business to build their work experience and skills and, ultimately, to create jobs. The LYF already had links with Ethiopian coffee smallholders and our Trustees and Executive all have experience of living and working in developing countries – so it wasn’t a big leap of imagination for us to envisage a fantastic new approach to direct trading; one that truly empowered African refugee communities in the UK and which paid a fair price to coffee smallholders in Ethiopia at the same time. Consequently, we began the first ‘Community to Community’ Fairtrade Coffee Company – the Oromo Coffee Company (OCC), a not-for-profit social enterprise.

A great deal of hard work was involved in setting up the company. The LYF worked closely with the Oromo community throughout and secured crucial support from a range of businesses and contributors. This included: importing, Fairtrade certification and quality control (Bolling Coffee), product logo, branding and packaging design (thanks to Asone Design), Company registration, sourcing an office and infrastructure (thanks to Tameside Council).

 Just months later in May 2009, the OCC were able to launch – at Westminster - their own range of Fairtrade coffee (thanks to James Purnell MP and Brian Keegan of 360 Group). The launch was attended by Tadesse Meskela (featured in the film ‘Black Gold’ and General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union)  and Lorna Young’s parents.

Crucial to the OCC’s success has been in-kind support from these partners.  It has been by no means easy to balance the capacity building needs of the Oromo community with the expectations of ‘speed and customer demands’ that even the ethical trading world is used to. And the challenge was doubled by the need to find a group of volunteers who not only had high levels of business skills, but who were committed to the practical skill-sharing and facilitating real empowerment for the Oromo community. But we have been fortunate to have received support from a band of excellent local volunteers and supporters. Their commitment and dedication is greatly appreciated.

The unusual ‘triple whammy’ of the initiative (Fairtrade price PLUS UK skills building and social profits for local people, forging cohesion between christian and muslim groups in an area at 'risk of extremism') PLUS the extremely high quality of the coffee has led to the OCC being inundated with demand. The OCC brand is now available in a number of retail outlets and many approaches from ethically minded community groups, churches and faith groups who see the value in the initiative are being made. The company has also just secured its first corporate contract.

The company is now growing and has an increasing number of Oromo residents receiving training and support in running their business and selling this ‘high end’, high quality filter coffee from Ethiopia – the birthplace of coffee. 

Please contact us at the LYF if you have any questions in relation to the OCC initiative, or, if you would like to buy Oromo coffee itself, contact the OCC. www.oromocoffee.org

Ethiopia and Kenya – Creating African Peer Partners to support Smallholder Coffee Farmers

We have now initiated a project, partnering Ambo College with Nyeri Technical Training Institute (Kenya) to transfer the knowledge and experience of Ambo College (Ethiopia) on working with smallholders -  to the NTTI – so that the NTTI can engage with and train smallholder coffee co-operatives locally in supply chain management.

This is all about developing the capacity of African institutions to support each other to assist with smallholder business education. There is also a specific emphasis on the inclusion of women within decision making.  As with all LYF projects, we are working to provided added value to our project - so that the direct focus on supporting coffee growers to access regional and global markets is bolstered by getting African institutions to share their own skills and to create stronger educational support, available locally, for their own farmers.