Emerging Ideas Roundup

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A group of women in the northern Peruvian Andes have come up with a surprisingly simple but bold solution. Since 2004 they've been selling their harvests through a women-only collective called Caf? Femenino. More than 750 women from 50 communities are involved in the project. They control the cash and management of the fields and have been using their profits in ways different from how men might spend them. Many women have used earnings to send their kids to school and improve the condition of their homes. This has created profound change in an environment where, according to the collective's export manager, Isabel Uriarte Latorre, featured in the short documentary Caf? Femenino, Worth Celebrating (Praxis Productions, 2006), 'women are not supposed to give their opinions with the family. They are like furniture.'

Latorre says that the goal of Caf? Femenino isn't just to sell coffee. Women living in isolated rural areas are hit hard by global poverty. They have little access to education and face a 70 percent chance of being sexually assaulted. Caf? Femenino has created an empowering network for these women and reached out to others by supporting women's initiatives elsewhere in the world. That's made the collective not just a source of high-quality coffee, but also a source of inspiration.

Reprinted from Shameless (Summer 2006), a magazine 'for girls who get it,' blogging at www.shamelessmag.com. To learn more about Caf? Femenino, visit www.cafefemeninofoundation.org.

Parenting at Protests

Baby Bloc, a Vancouver-based group, not only encourages parents to take their kids along when they're protesting the Man-they also want to make it easier for them. Broken Pencil (Issue 32) lauds the idea of raising socially aware children but asks a critical question: Is it right for parents to potentially endanger their children? After all, it only takes a moment for a peace march to turn into a tear-gas-infused melee. Baby Bloc cofounder Bruce Triggs tells Utne Reader that that's exactly the point, which is why he's hoping to create safe areas at protest sites where the wee ones can munch on snacks and watch a puppet show while mom and dad get their chant on. It's not about turning babies into 'protest props,' Triggs says, but about allowing politically active parents to stay active.

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