for Coffee lovers!

There is exciting news this month...

a new online company is importing and making locally grown Haitian coffee available in the US!

Every serious coffee drinker visiting Haiti invariably makes sure that they have an adequate stash of REBO in their checked bags before boarding the plane home. 

While we love filling Haitian coffee orders for guests and toting it to family & friends when we visit...this is very exciting news for the Haitian coffee industry itself! We all know that anything that helps the economy here is a GOOD thing. SO hopefully this will give you an even better excuse to buy your coffee from Kafe Pa Nou (translated: "our coffee")

Just in case that isn't convincing enough. I'll add that the coffees that they sell here are competitively priced and considered a "direct trade" product. Read about it here. We are strong advocates of this alternative model.

Ted's pick???      

Cafe REBO Deluxe       

@ the artisan village

Today's 60 seconds follws us to the metal work artisan village. "tink, tink, tink..." It is one of our favorite places to go! The creations that they make out of old oil drums are phenomenal. Today we were purchasing items to be sold in the gift shop that Tynan is maintaining at the WO guest house. All of the profits are used to help move families in our partner church communities, out of tents and into homes. 

A new addition @ the guest house!

Earlier this summer the interns started a fledgling project.

With an initial $50 loan from our personal expense funds, Tynan, Ana, Emma & David started up a little "gift shop". At first they bought some metal work pieces from the craftsman village at a direct source price, but before long they were taking orders for more!

They decided that the profits would go into a fund to help one of nearly 20 families in our programs, that are still living in tents or inadequate housing, move into a safer home.

Three months later, the shop has expanded it's inventory to hold a variety of other products by local craftsmen & women through the Apparent Project. This super-cool organization helps to keep families together by providing individuals from unstable situations with training and a venue to use their skills to earn an income and feed their children. It has helped to prevent children with families from entering orphanages due to lack of basic resources...something that we are very passionate about at World Orphans as well!

a DOUBLE benefit - We are really excited to be helping support these local artisans, at the same time as we are working on providing homes for the OVC families. 

The products are beautiful, guests are enjoying the simple shopping convenience, and it seems to be blossoming into a very productive and hope-filled little endeavor. Can't wait to see it for yourself?

Here is a peek at what it's grown into so far: