Today, she participates actively at the school, serving on the Parent Committee, and is also a representative on the Health Committee, where she helps secure support for medicines in her community.

“I feel useful, I feel happy because I’m not only a mother. I also know I can take on other activities.”
All this while managing her household with improved financial organization. In 2023, she started by saving $50 pesos a week; now she saves $200.

By doing this, in her first year she bought a large table, one big enough for her whole family. In the second cycle, she replaced her old mattress, and this year she’s about to reach her goal of replacing her old stove-top with a full stove and oven.

For her, participating in the MARES savings sessions and sharing with her companions has been her greatest source of strength: “When one of us is falling apart, the rest of us are there to lift her up. This group is a place where you feel sheltered.”

The project includes a self-managed microcredit system, with low interest rates set by the participants themselves, allowing women to invest in small projects that improve their quality of life. The interest generated goes back into the group, strengthening solidarity and autonomy.

In addition, each participant contributes to a solidarity fund used to support women in unexpected situations, from serious illness to damage to their homes.

Now, more participants recognize themselves as providers:

• 9% have created or strengthened a small business.

• 30% now hold community leadership roles, stepping into responsibility spaces that once were banned to women.

Once considered a space reserved for men, the countryside has also changed for women. Today, women are forging paths not only in production and harvesting, but also in decision-making, innovation, and community leadership.

For Patricia, strengthening her knowledge of waste separation, water conservation (through the creation of biofilters), and ongoing training in organic compost production has revealed the profound impact these practices have had on substantially improving her coffee production.

The Somos Cafetaleras project achieves a perfect combination of technical elements and social economy principles. The sustainability workshops, for example, have a direct impact on the value proposition of coffee: by consolidating an agroecological and environmentally friendly product, Patricia can access a better market. This technical-social approach coincides with the historical commitment of women in this region to caring for the land and the environment, turning tradition into a sustainable competitive advantage.

Each woman producer plants an average of 1.5 hectares, yielding approximately 300 kg of coffee (5 quintales). As a result of the Somos Cafetaleras training, specialty coffee production is expected to increase by around 20%.

But even more importantly, their coffee now achieves higher scores (specific figure to be added), earns a fairer price, and becomes more resilient to pests and climate change. They have also learned to organize alongside other women producers: working in coordination, sharing knowledge, and negotiating under better conditions.

Coffee blossoms when you take care of it… and a woman also blossom when believe in what is capable of doing.

“I believe that for anything to truly blossom, it has to start within ourselves… So yes, being a woman influences a lot, but it’s a unique awakening—your own—having to say: I want to be different from the rest, no matter what others may think.” —Patricia

Women of Coffee does more than boost productivity; it is generating a profound transformation in women’s self-esteem, confidence, and leadership throughout the coffee value chain. In every improved plot and every higher-quality cup, you can see a process in which women make decisions, innovate, and recognize themselves as protagonists of their own growth.

Patricia’s story confirms that in the mountains where coffee is born, new forms of autonomy and community well-being are also taking root. Because blossoming begins with believing in oneself—and today Patricia cultivates both: coffee and confidence.

Women invest up to 90% of their income in the well-being, health, and nutrition of their families. Beyond covering basic needs, every peso supports children’s school attendance, strengthens household food security, and reinforces local economies.

Magda, a participant in the MARES savings group project in the Eastern Zone of Villa de Zaachila, experiences this transformation at home:

“Everything I’ve learned, I’ve put into practice at home with my children, and even with my parents… When they (the instructors) give us a workshop and provide instructions of what we need to do, we follow them with love, and we teach it to our children.”

 

Magda’s story is just one of many…

Globally, more than 75% of unpaid care work falls on women. They are central within families, caring, educating, and supporting the development of all their members, passing down principles and values to future generations.

When women gain access to knowledge, resources, and leadership opportunities, they break cycles of poverty and promote their children’s education, transforming not only their own future but that of society as a whole.

Children observe and learn from their mothers’ dedication and resilience, shaping their own expectations and future roles.

When women lead, they promote participation at all levels, offering diverse perspectives that lead to more inclusive, people-centered solutions focused on collective well-being.

Through the training in social and solidarity economy offered by SOMOS CAFETALERAS, this year we expect to accompany 150 women coffee producers in the Sierra Sur and Mixteca regions of Oaxaca, belonging to different groups and advancement stages.

Within this group, 23 long-standing participants have already improved the health of their soils, adopted sustainable composting practices, and implemented actions to strengthen their brands.

Nilda, one of the participants from the community of San Agustín Loxicha, explains it this way:

“We have worked a lot on solidarity… when I don’t have a product or, even when someone asks if I have coffee, or if I have it in a certain presentation, I say, ‘Well, I have mine in these presentations… but there is also another person who sells it at such price, and I don’t know her product, but if you’d like, you can ask her,’ trying to get more people involved, not just me selling my things, trying to support others.”

Puente was founded on the principle that rural families have the right to nutritional understanding and to access healthy, culturally appropriate foods; and believing that agroecology, using appropriate technologies and biofertilizers, combined with an abundance of ancestral knowledge, is a way to replenish the soil, combat climate change and grow a beautiful and nutritious grain.

For its part, SiKanda contributes more than eight years of experience successfully designing and implementing projects focused on women’s entrepreneurship, solidarity networks, community leadership, and advocacy for women’s rights and gender equality.

The partnership with SiKanda builds on this foundation, extending support to women in the most marginalized regions of Oaxaca, areas that are often left behind due to their remoteness and limited access to infrastructure.

The Mixteca and Sierra Sur regions are home to 10 of the 12 poorest municipalities in the state. Accessing essential services or training programs often means traveling long hours through mountainous terrain. For women of these regions accessing essential services or training programs often means traveling long hours through mountainous terrain: a 200 km distance can easily turn injto a six-hour journey to the capital for what might be a two-day workshop.

For many women, who balance household care, agricultural work, and community service, this is simply impossible. So instead of asking women to come to us, we go to them, closing not only the physical distance but also the symbolic gap between women and their dreams.

The partnership with SiKanda builds on this foundation, extending support to women in the most marginalized regions of Oaxaca, areas that are often left behind due to their remoteness and limited access to infraestructure.

The Mixteca and Sierra Sur regions are rich in biodiversity and ideal for growing high-quality coffee. But these same lands face growing environmental pressures — deforestation, soil erosion, and increasingly severe weather events.

In 2023, Hurricane Agatha devastated coffee farms in the Sierra Sur, cutting production by up to 90% in some areas, Meanwhile, in the highlands of Mixteca, the arrival of diseases and pests such as the berry borer beetle and the coffee leaf rust, are constant problems faced by producers.

This has been the case for Isabel:

“The young people…many of them migrated and left. Those of us who remained are their parents, carrying on the work. A few have stayed, but there are no young people left, they all emigrated out of necessity. When coffee prices are good, we manage to do well, but when they’re bad, we can’t even cover our costs.”

“Right now, our problem with coffee is that it gets infested, first with the coffee borer beetle and then with the coffee leaf miner. All our coffee was ruined, and when we cut it and tried to pulp it, there were no beans left, just pure rubble, pure waste… Our two-year harvest is gone; it attacked us. But where there are large plants, everything has been destroyed. We are planting only new plants again, but we are suffering”.