Merchants of Green Coffee is honored to have the encouragement and support of the
following organizations: World Wildlife Fund Canada
Founded in Switzerland in 1961 by a small group of wildlife enthusiasts, WWF
International has grown into the world's largest and most respected
independent conservation organization. WWF Canada was founded in 1967,
enjoying the active support of more than 50,000 Canadians. It is one of 27
national offices in the international WWF family. WWF as a family aims to stop
the degradation of the planet's natural environment and build a future in which
humans live in harmony with nature, by:
- conserving the world's biological diversity
- ensuring that the use of renewable resources is sustainable
- promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption
WWF Canada helps to advance this mission through five ambitious conservation
programs. WWF's conservation results include the protection of 96 million acres
of Canadian wilderness through the Endangered Spaces Campaign; the development
and implementation of recovery plans for a number of species, including the
St. Lawrence beluga whale and the right whale; the banning of carbofuran, a
grasshopper spray implicated in the decline of the burrowing owl; and the protection
of thousands of acres of tropical forests throughout Latin America. Friends of the Earth Canada
Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) was founded in 1971 by four organizations
from France, Sweden, England and the USA. Friends of the Earth Canada was formed in
1978 and joined FOEI in 1983. There are now 68 FOE member groups, which are campaign
internationally, nationally and locally to protect the environment and create
sustainable societies. They are united by the common conviction that environmentally
sustainable development requires both strong grassroots activism and effective
national and international campaigning. In 2002, the combined number of members and
supporters of Friends of the Earth groups was more than one million, and the FOEI
umbrella united more than 5,000 local activists groups.
The federation aims to:
- protect the earth against further deterioration and repair damage inflicted
upon the environment by human activities and negligence;
- preserve the earth's ecological, cultural and ethnic diversity;
- increase public participation and democratic decision-making. Greater democracy
is both an end in itself and is vital to the protection of the environment and
the sound management of natural resources;
- achieve social, economic and political justice and equal access to resources
and opportunities for men and women on the local, national, regional and
international levels;
- promote environmentally sustainable development on the local, national, regional
and global levels.
Coffee Kids
Coffee Kids is a nonprofit organization, founded by coffee roaster Bill Fishbein
in 1988, with the mission to improve the quality of life for children and families
who live in coffee-growing communities around the world. Coffee Kids works with
local non-governmental community organizations to create education, health-care,
training, and microenterprise programs for coffee farmers and their families.
Coffee Kids believes that programs must be community-based and founded on the
principles of sustainability. This means that each program is structured so
that new economic dependencies will not be created and so that each program can
flourish independent of outside support. Because every coffee-growing community
is unique, every Coffee Kids program is unique. What is common is an attitude of
respect: respect for all people's values, cultural integrity, intelligence,
and ingenuity.
Coffee Kids currently works in four countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua,
and Costa Rica. Several thousand families in over a hundred communities benefit
from Coffee Kids' programs.
Coffee Kids is funded through donations from business (42%), foundation grants
(10%), donations from individuals (30%), in-kind goods and services (12%),
coin drop collections (4%) and merchandise sales (2%).
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