Bawa, Cameroon Africa December 2010 (Cameroon News) - Students in Free Enterprise are all set to re-launch Café Cameroon as the previous suppliers faced financial troubles to carry the business forward.
Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) have announced plans to once again kick off Café Cameroon after the previous suppliers had to file for bankruptcy.
Students in Free Enterprise are all set to re-launch Café Cameroon as the previous suppliers faced financial troubles to carry the business forward.
As the café was all geared to start off once again on Dec 6th SIFE announced that they planned to present a check for 2500 dollars to the Bawa Health Initiative. They stated that that a major chunk of the profits that Café Cameroon earns by means of selling coffee that is produced in various parts of Africa would go towards Bawa Health Initiative.
The Bawa Health Initiative has been developed with the motive of setting up a medical center in the vicinity of the village of Bawa situated in Cameroon.
Presently the people of the village has to travel six miles to reach their nearest medical facility and this becomes a burden for the villagers who do not have proper means of transportation, stated senior Brittney Fouskas, the chairman for Café Cameroon.
The mission of Café Cameroon does not however end once the health center is commissioned here.
“We plan to raise enough money to build the medical center and sustain it,” Fouskas said. “After the health center is built, Café Cameroon will still be around to sustain the medicine, equipment and employees.”
Fouskas said SIFE started this initiative with Café Cameroon after drawing inspiration from Professor of Biology Dennis Richardson, a cofounder of the Bawa Health Initiative.
“Café Cameroon coffee never went away, so re-launch isn’t exactly the proper term for the event,” said senior accounting Major Pamela Noujaim, who was the Co-Vice President of SIFE till the recent past. “The only reason why the word‘re-launch’ has been used on the flyers is because we used to import raw coffee beans from Bawa, Cameroon.”
The company who was handling the transportation of coffee for Café Cameroon had to be shut down following bankruptcy claims and the company was no longer able to export the coffee from the village of Bawa.
“Getting coffee out of Cameroon became increasingly difficult due to the tariffs and difficulties of transportation of the coffee to the dock,” Fouskas said.
Café Cameroon presently deals with fair-trade coffee that is produced from Rwanda and is cent percent yielded from Arabic Mountains. The supply is sourced from Dean’s Beans, a wholesale coffee merchant who operates out of Massachusetts. This will permit Café Cameroon to ensure that they will have access to a regular supply of coffee, in tandem with margins that were higher than what they used to have previously.
“Moving to sell Rwandan coffee was a win-win-win situation for the farmers, Bawa and Café Cameroon,” Fouskas said.
Fouskas also states that the farmers have been adequately trained in indulging in safe farming practices and the coffee that they produce are environmentally sustainable.
“Fair trade means that the farmers receive 20% above the market price than they normally would receive for their product,” Fouskas said. “The farmers are educated on how to farm safer and the crops that they grow are environmentally sustainable.”
The medical drive that SIFE is striving to put in place for Bawa will be a tremendous relief for the villagers who aim from numerous problems.
The sole source of drinking water for the village which is home to at least 500 people is just a small river that is filled with disease causing germs and contaminated with human excreta.
The health condition of the villagers is also pathetic and most people suffer from a multitude of infectious diseases raging from typhoid to malaria to AIDS. More than 25 percent of the deaths happen to under aged children who suffer from either malnutrition or infections which are the cause for their premature deaths.
Café Cameroon will also market a plethora of other products such as dark and milk chocolate-covered espresso beans, and hot chocolate. Café Cameroon, to ensure that all their products achieve a better visibility and in order to make the availability wider also plan to take orders for their products through their website at Cafecameroon.com.
“It’s delicious and for a great cause,” Noujaim said.
