In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand In Gear - Issue 3 | Page 19

human rights, protecting the environment and
operating with a robust business model.
“So we have to change, we have to change our way of
thinking, And, it isn’t up to the families – it isn’t their
responsibility to change, because we were coming into
their environment. We
have to change.
“Just because, for example, we’re working with
disabilities issues,
doesn’t mean to
... everything we do should
say we don’t have
consider the impact on earth,
responsibilities back
because we all share it –
to the earth, like
sowing nutrients
disabled or not.”
back into the land.
“This is something
that everyone has a responsibility to, and should be
tied into everything we do; everything we do should
consider the impact on earth, because we all share it –
disabled or not.”
The families The Lucy Foundation is working with live
in poverty, often supporting young and adult children
with disabilities on a pittance. Their rare coffee plants
present a gateway to hope, inclusion and financial
freedom.
“So, we’re helping them learn about specialty coffee
processes. Large-scale coffee production traditionally
uses machines and more resistant trees.
“It’s isolated, there are
no banks – things take
time. And that’s been a
huge learning curve.
“If we were a business
looking at pure
productivity and profit, we would go in there and go:
‘Bam, bam, bam – let’s do this, this and this’, and we’d
probably have a great product at the end of it. But,
we’d just be another business.”
With the New Zealand team now on the ground, a 2ha
plot’s been leased and serves as a classroom for the
families. Some have their own land, others don’t. The
overarching goal is for the families to become self-
employed, and empowered, from their own coffee
crop. It is, says Robbie, a gradual, careful process,
because they can’t afford to risk whatever current
employment they do have.
“Specialty coffee is very much focused on
the best. You don’t pick everything off the
plant – you only pick the ripe cherries. If
you pick everything, and you’re getting
paid by paid weight, it makes sense to
pick everything. But, it makes the coffee
inconsistent and of lower quality.
“So, picking the right cherries, at the right
time, with the right touch, the right smell,
the right flavour, that can be a good job for
people with certain disabilities, like autism,
who can be great at sorting.”
The team’s initial research showed poverty
at the root of virtually all of the families’
problems, so, for them, another imperative
is financial sustainability.
“They didn’t have money for medication,
so they became more unwell. They didn’t
have a roof over their head because they couldn’t pay
rent. They just couldn’t go to school, so they couldn’t
get a job, so they couldn’t earn money. It’s just a vicious
cycle,” Robbie says.
Planning started three years ago, and The Lucy
Foundation has just finished its all-important pilot
season, which included two New Zealand members
arriving in September to be part of the onsite team.
The first harvest in December was modest, but what’s
been reaped to date is far more important to ongoing
success – trust and community buy-in.
“They don’t trust easily, because they‘ve had so many
people come in and try their business ideas or, just
take the mickey out of them really.
Robbie and fellow foundation members Jessica Pantoja-Sanders and
Ryan Sanders, with coffee seedlings in Mexico.
Open-air education
“The land we have is almost like a classroom. It’s
where families come in and they do workshops; they
learn new processes, like composting – very simple
agricultural ideas, but we design the workshops in a
way that’s totally accessible for anyone of any ability.
“So, the families with disabilities can be 100 percent
involved and then they, too, become an expert. We
invite other people from the community, other locals
in the region who are experts in organic coffee – things
that we might not know about, but they can come and
teach, so it becomes a sharing of knowledge and that
knowledge is free.
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