The World Trade Center Dublin has kick started the Retail Accelerator Program, geared towards fast-tracking the launch of our member company products into the U.S. marketplace. With an exclusive partnership with select US Retailers, this exciting new program allows WTCD to provide additional trade services to its members that will accelerate their growth in the marketplace.

As part of our business recruitment process for the Accelerator Program we have come across a number of SME’s both in Ireland and globally with brilliant ideas, creative backgrounds and stories that resonate with local and international audiences that are worth sharing.

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8th, we chose to highlight a Women-owned business that contributes to the economic and social development of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. This department of Colombia that lies on the west coast of the South American nation is home to Buenaventura, the nation’s main port in the Pacific Ocean, through which the major portion of Colombian Coffee is exported. It is with pleasure that the World Trade Center Dublin shares the story behind this amazing business: Fundassue.

After more than 50 years of civil war, the guns of Colombia are mostly silent. Most members of FARC and other guerilla groups, who once funded their operations via kidnapping, drug-running, and murder, have dispersed into the population. Farmers, driven from their lands, have headed home. And though some former FARC guerilla fighters have called for a return to war, in much of the country, a fragile peace prevails.

But how does someone who has only known war build a peacetime life? A non-profit foundation called Fundassue, led by two attorneys, Diana Delgado, Fundassue’s founder and legal counsel, an expert in conflict resolution; and Gloria Delgado, Fundassue’s alternate legal representative, and an expert in human rights, see peace intrinsically tied to human rights and economic betterment. So, the foundation’s activities are multi-faceted: educating individuals about ideas that promote human rights and a culture of peace; bringing needed healthcare to marginalized populations with low economic resources; promoting gender equality; and workplace empowerment. And, perhaps, most significant: creating economic opportunity by resurrecting the growing of an agricultural product prized throughout the world— Colombia’s Arabica coffee bean.

Too many coffee growers had to abandon their farms as the conflict swept across their lands. Today, Fundassue’s coffee resurgence efforts focus on the mountains and the valley and department of the Cauca, along drug trafficking routes where much of the armed conflict was concentrated. Although everyone in Colombia was affected in some way by the decades-long war, whether directly or indirectly, for Diana and some Fundassue associates who have ties to the region, and have lived with the consequences of the conflict throughout their lives, changing course here is personal.

“What we are looking for in this project is to better the living conditions of the people that are located in major conflict zones,” says Diana. “We hope that with this project, people will begin to return to their coffee cultivating culture and recuperate the crop.”

While coffee is in the blood of the locals, Diana says that globalization and technology are other factors that wooed farmers away from their ancestral coffee growing practices. In its place, all too many turned to the illicit agricultural products, such as coca and amapola, that funded guerilla activities. “We intend for these projects to open farmers and growers’ eyes to the possibilities that come with cultivating coffee,” she says. “This activity goes hand in hand with promoting human rights.”

Surprisingly, growing coffee—legal, in-demand, and intrinsic to the culture—actually offers higher profit potential to farmers than illicit crops, along with the prestige and security that have been absent for so long for the farmers.

“With this project, our aim is to give better prices to the producers, the farmers and agronomists,” says Diana. “This way, they see that coffee production is worth it, and is viable.”

Fundassue has developed several strategies to ensure farmers’ success. “We want this coffee not to be regular coffee, but organic,” explains Gloria. “This way, it will have an additional asset that in the end will generate more sales and buzz nationally and internationally.”

Fundassue’s efforts begin with outreach to locals. “We are a foundation that operates through teamwork and cooperation which result in alliances,” says Gloria, “and this way we form a more collective environment.”

Though farming families in the Cauca may have cultivated coffee for generations, they need training in organic methods, technology, and administration to help them take advantage of the 21st century marketplace. The foundation hires whatever specialists might be necessary, for example, experts in organic fertilizers who can show farmers how to recycle the crop’s wastes or excess into savings.

All this takes a large initial investment, of course, and Fundassue dedicates significant efforts to fundraising.

Ultimately, Fundassue’s coffee project opens up opportunities for buyers and roasters to partner with growers of an unparalleled coffee, while increasing SMEs’ bona fides as good global citizens. Through Web Port Global, the foundation is currently working with members at the World Trade Center Dublin in Ireland and is actively engaged in a search for more partnerships.

Because Colombian coffee of the Cauca region is a niche product, it should be especially attractive to small to medium-sized players in the organic food sector.

For more information about Fundassue, please see: https://fundassue.com