Ms Endah Yuliawati, a 32-year-old coffee farmer and business owner in West Java, Indonesia, has spent the last three years operating a village shop to supplement her husband’s coffee farming income. While the mother of three is a savvy entrepreneur today, that wasn’t always the case.
According to a 2018 report by the International Coffee Organization, Indonesia has the highest concentration of coffee farmers globally, with women contributing up to 70 per cent of the labour force. However, cultural norms surrounding traditional gender roles continue to place them at a disadvantage.
To help address these challenges, The Starbucks Foundation collaborates with global non-profit organisations such as Mercy Corps, CARE and Lutheran World Relief to empower women and girls in coffee, tea- and cocoa-growing regions of Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. These initiatives focus on developing leadership skills, expanding economic opportunities and improving access to clean water and sanitation.
In 2022, Ms Endah attended a health education training programme organised by Mercy Corps. She was then selected alongside 800 other women to participate in a financial literacy programme also led by Mercy Corps, supported by an Origin Grant from The Starbucks Foundation.
Over the course of a month, she completed five training sessions covering topics such as bookkeeping, pricing, digital marketing, e-commerce strategies and financial management. Equipped with her newfound skills, Ms Endah expanded her business beyond coffee farming – she now sells cascara, a tea made from discarded coffee shells. She cleans and repurposes the shells, packaging them so customers can brew their own cascara at home. Ms Endah also leverages her newly acquired digital marketing skills to advertise her products and expand customer reach.
Ms Endah said: “The programme showed me I can be more than just a woman in the kitchen – I can also run a business.”
