Photo by Evan Gilman
Grounds for Health
Coffee workers in Kenya
US
Grounds for Health, a Vermont-based organization dedicated to women’s health around the world, is the inaugural recipient of the National Coffee Association’s Origin Charity of the Year Award.
The new award recognizes organizations around the world that help coffee farmers overcome challenges. Finalists for the award were Coffeelands Trust and The Coffee Trust.
Smallholder farmers across the world, regardless of the crop they farm, face a wide array of challenges - from weather and changing climate, to the infrastructure issues prevalent across developing nations, such as a lack of medical care, schools, and other services, the National Coffee Association (NCA) said in a statement. Grounds for Health “demonstrates the power of focusing on a problem that has a solution.”
Grounds for Health addresses one of the most significant disparities in women's health globally. Cervical cancer is a nearly 10 percent preventable disease, and yet in the next 15 years it is expected to kill six million women - 90 percent of whom will live in developing countries. Considering that women do an estimated 70 percent of the fieldwork on coffee farms globally, providing basic screenings and preventative care can have a provide significant help for families, farms, and communities, the NCA said.
The award will be presented March 16 at the NCA’s annual convention.
"We are honored to have been selected as the first winners of the NCA Origin Charity of the Year Award," said Ellen Starr, executive director of Grounds for Health. "Our work in the coffee regions of Latin American and East Africa has been supported in great measure by the coffee industry. This award highlights our shared commitment to providing cervical cancer prevention for women in the coffee lands. Our relationship demonstrates just how much social change can be achieved when an industry fundamentally cares about its people at every step of the supply chain."
Learn more about Grounds for Health: www.groundsforhealth.org