Annual meeting for women coffee farmers in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Women farmers from Imbiruçu (Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Women farmers from Martins Soares (Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Generosity is added to those who we offer something. However, when we do well for others, our action has the power to make US better. I have no doubts about the strength of generosity in the history of Cintia Matos and her work with women of the coffee at Coocafe, a cooperative from Matas de Minas and Espitiro Santo Mountains Regions in Brazil.

Cintia began to work in the world of coffee when she was a child. Her parents and grandparents worked with coffee, and they lived in front of a coffee seedling nursery, and since then, she has learned how to deal with the little coffee trees while her parents were working, because she had nobody with whom to stay with her when she came back from school.

It was there that her passion for coffee awoke and would stay with her forever. She studied to become an agriculture technician and returned as a technician to the same company she worked for before her university studies. Almost immediately after graduating, Cintia started her job as a technical consultant and has been with this company ever since.

Her work in the area of environmental and social responsibility won a new meaning when she started to guide and encourage the female groups from the cooperative. At the beginning, Cintia needed to call the women of the cooperative one by one, and try to convince them to join the actions promoted by the cooperative.

Cintia recalls when asking the women to introduce themselves, they used to say: “I’m the so-and-so, the so-and-so's wife”. And then Cintia asked: “But what are you responsible for on the farm?” And the ladies usually responded: “Almost everything!”

So, Cinita encouraged the woman to introduce themselves again: “I am so-and-so, a coffee grower, and also the wife of so-and-so”. With this single change in the way they presented themselves, Cintia noticed an increase of self-esteem, and a rise of their self-worth for their work on the coffee farms. This gave them more security and increased their interest in the female groups of the cooperative. And what is more important: they influenced other women to join them.

Nowadays, the female leaders no longer need encouragement and come on their own and introduce themselves. The result of this movement is already visible in all areas of the cooperative: when we say “women in coffee”, it is more than just these women, it more about their families as well. Loaded with responsibility and knowledge, these wives, mothers, daughters emphasize the quality in production. As we can see, the “quiet revolution” changes the dynamics from the entities that support it, as well as the lives of all women involved, their families, and even the coffee sector organization.

The Women Coffee Group from Matas de Minas and Espirito Santo Mountains has just founded a sub-chapter of International Women Coffee Alliance in Brazil. Cintia has been sharing this experience with others cooperatives in different regions of coffee. This exchange of experiences has given her even more satisfaction in her work. To be involved at the beginning of this change has given Cintia the feeling of receiving more than she could have ever dreamed of when she started this journey with women.

Although silent, the revolution that happens in coffee can have a strong echo. The eco of the actions of these women has a resilient voice called generosity.