Mahlkönig has launched a video documenting the work it and its charity partners Probat and La Marzocco have been doing with their co-owned co-owned coffee farm, Songwa Estates, in Tanzania At the beginning of 2017, after 10 years of work in Tanzania, Mahlkönig, Probat and La Marzocco presented the new donation project “Hands for Songwa”. The partners agreed on donating specific percentages of their products’ turnovers for new special projects around Songwa Estates. During spring and summer of this year these donations got used to install four new wells including pumps and platforms at the village Itimba, located close to the coffee farm.
Visitors from each partnering company had been invited to experience the wells’ inauguration ceremonies that got celebrated with dance and vocal performances by the villagers and the pupils of Itimba’s school. Besides the intense coffee lessons taken on the farm, the moving impressions during the inauguration ceremonies are probably the most lasting memories of these very special journeys.
The products contributing to this project are labelled with the “Hands for Songwa” logo, showing customers the direct positive impact of their purchase on the local living conditions as well as on the immediate community of Songwa. Mahlkönig furthermore presents an individual souvenir from the journey to the heart of Tanzania: a short movie documents the importance of water for the local people and conveys the unique vitality of the African culture. The Songwa Estates coffee farm is situated directly at the heart of the picturesque Tanzanian highlands, at about 1500 metres above sea level. One section of the farm is managed by Mahlkönig in close collaboration with the roaster producer Probat and the espresso machine manufacturer La Marzocco. Since 2007 the three companies have been inviting customers, co-workers and partners from the coffee industry to Songwa to make individual personal experiences of the growing, the processing and the commercialisation of green coffee.
While the visitors discover the origin of coffee, they get to learn exciting details about the fostering of new seedlings, the importance of the soil’s condition, as well as about the tasks during the harvest season. At the same time the visitors develop a personal relationship to the people earing their livings with the daily work at the farm. Striving to improve their lives becomes a matter of course for everyone involved. This is why the local support of the people as well as fair working conditions are a vital part of the Songwa project, as it has been since the beginning. Mahlkönig and its partners are working continuously on local social projects, as for example the construction of school buildings and the allocation of learning material for the children.
You can view the video here.
