Blog Archives - Women in the world of Coffee

Perhaps the difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength or a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of motivation - by Kattia Barrantes

7/17/2015

Kattia - center - motivating others to love and appreciate coffee

Learning to over come obstacles

A good cup of coffee always helps to keep motivation high

Motivation is the force or engine that thrusts us into making our dreams come true, personally as well as professionally.

It is that which helps us to get up, move forward in difficult and hard times, when you feel you cannot take a further step, it is that spark that ignites the soul of our life and illuminates the path to success.

In my life, I can say that motivation has been my support, the hand that holds me, my guardian angel who guides me in my development as a human being to become the woman I am today: a dreamer, a fighter, entrepreneur, always looking to achieve my goals and objectives, which at the beginning seemed unattainable, but not impossible.

It is faith in you, no matter what others believe or think. We must remember that boundaries are within us; competition and struggle are within us. We must always be the best version of ourselves.

It is important to understand that this world we live in needs people to work more and criticize less, build more and destroy less, promise less and solve more, expect less and give more. They must say “now” rather than “tomorrow”. It is only possible to move forward when one sees beyond the obstacles. One can only thrive when thinking big.

And this can only be achieved when motivated. Motivation is what drives us to start and habit allows us to continue.

Motivation can be reflected on anything that surrounds us. The important thing is to recognize our strengths and weaknesses, to love and respect ourselves the way we are and to work every day to be better without losing our essence.

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into something beautiful - by Ines Ciza

7/10/2015

“Investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth. Investing in women is not only the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do”.
By Ban-Ki-Moon, General Secretary, United States.

Around the world, women play a major role in the production of coffee. Despite this fact, women tend to have little control over the harvest proceeds. Women producers have little access to productive resources, including land, credit and inputs, and women’s roles in actual coffee marketing and trade in most countries is extremely limited. Women are often marginalized from the sector decision-making processes that affect them.

Research shows that increased access to resources for women, particularly in the agricultural industry, has great effects on education, health, nutrition as well as on poverty reduction. For women, - and thus also for families and communities – to thrive, barriers to women fulfilling their potential in the economic and commercial activities need to be overcome.

Access to information, credit, infrastructures, and other business development services are required to ensure women’s involvement in decision-making processes. Awareness, training and networking are crucial to strengthen women’s voices in the coffee sector.

Perhaps the most opportune way to advance women and promote women’s rights in the coffee sector is through women’s associations, in which there is a joint agreement on objectives, where issues and matters of particular interest to women can be discussed freely, and where there is an absence of peer pressure.

Many national women’s associations have emerged since 2002 in order to express what women have endured for a very long time, to awaken other women in the coffee industry to take a stand and fight for their rights for empowerment in the coffee industry. It is time that women get the recognition they deserve, especially after what they have endured for so many years in the coffee industry.