WE CARE ABOUT...
In a word, SUSTAINABILITY.
What this means to us is: investing in people and community and stewarding the land whilst ensuring a return
to sustain this investment.
To provide ourselves with a framework for communicating about the work we do, we use the following UN sustainable development goals.
- Good health and wellbeing: We have 4 clinics and an ambulance and work with government to provide ARVs and under 5 clinics free.
We also employ health surveillance assistants who go round communities checking on general health as well as education on general hygiene, waste disposal etc. Due to lack of government/other external resources, this becomes part of our social cost of business and part of sustainable production.
- Quality Education: We provide simple creches for working mothers, and together with government support a primary school of over 1.000 kids. Through the funds generated from sales to FAIRTRADE buyers we provide scholarships to about 120 kids and with RARE CHARITY (www.rarecharity.com) provide the route to tertiary education for promising kids who would otherwise not get the opportunity. The idea is this is an investment in the future with some of these kids come back to work in various guises in tea.
- Gender Equity: This is something that has long been close to us and we work hard to promote woman at Satemwa. Our previous Chairman Chip was personally driving this culture for many years and took time to mentor woman from all walks of life within our company and we hope to follow in his foo.
-Climate Action: as agriculturalists in a heavily populated and resource denuded region we are on the coal face of climate change. We are involved in dealing with its effects on a daily basis and planning for the future - investing in research for improved varieties, reforesting every spare corner of land, encouraging smallholders to plan woodlots and use energy efficient stoves, planting fruit forests for employees to learn from and enjoy the fruits of the list goes on.
- Partnerships: We believe partnerships are a great way to leverage our human resource and infrastructural assets that we have. We do this in many ways with a range of organisations. In the past with NGOs such as Medicine Sans Frontier to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 2000s, with our government to provide a weekly under 5 clinic not only to our own employees but to the 1000s of people living in our community and with buyers such as the rare company who set up the Rare Charity to deliver educational opportunity to talented but underprivileged young adults.
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