After my last blog entry about "happy customers", a friend emailed me and said, "Sweet! OK, sign me up! How?"  To get some of this love in a mug is really easy ... just go to the cauzal.com website and place your order. Once you're at the website, follow these simple steps:

1. drag the coffee bags of your choice into the shopping basket,
   
2. go to the checkout and confirm your order,
   
3. click "next" and sign in or register as a new user,
   
4. select the Cauze that you want to support and think about making an additional gift to that Cauze,
   
5. enter your billing and shipping information, and
   
6. go to the final checkout.
   

The coffee should arrive at your doorstep within just a couple of days, and you'll be enjoying some love in a mug with your morning bagel!    

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I enjoyed reading the following review of Cauzal Coffee on my sister-in-law's blog:

"You know how I like to start my mornings? You betcha. A nice, hot, aromatic cup of coffee. And what if me drinking this said cup of coffee helped a country like Burundi combat hunger and disease? Can I get a woo to the hoo?

Even though Heaven knows I've tried, I personally cannot possibly drink enough coffee to help the entire country, so I am hoping that some of you will join in my fun and help support World Relief by buying a bag or two or 27.

We ordered our coffee from the Cauzal Coffee website (awesome website, by the way) and received it quickly. To be honest, I didn't expect the coffee to taste that great because, let's face it, I am a coffee snob. To my utter surprise we L.O.V.E. the "Dancing Child" blend and I can see my coffee addiction going to dangerous levels because of it.

Excellent stuff.

Love in a mug.

It is that good, people.

So, if you're a coffee drinker, and I KNOW you are, consider skipping on over (you're skipping because of the high caffeine levels in your blood) and ordering some of this fine beverage. It's the least we can do, dontcha think?"

Because every sip CAN matter. 

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Cauzal Coffee partners with Compassion International in our HIV/AIDS Cauze. Since 1952, Compassion has focused on meeting the needs of children in poverty -- all the needs of the "whole" child -- emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. Compassion works in prevention of the HIV infection, treatment for those living with HIV/AIDS, and rehabilitative care for children who have been orphaned and indirectly affected by AIDS. Prevention is the only long-term effective strategy for mitigating the spread of the pandemic itself; therefore, prevention is of first importance. Treatment refers to the medical and psychosocial care given to those who are already infected by HIV. Many children in Compassion's care are not themselves infected, yet their lives and well-being are jeopardized by HIV infection within their families and communities. Therefore, Compassion's response to HIV/AIDS extends beyond prevention of new infection and treatment of the infected, to include care for those whose lives are indirectly affected by the pandemic.  

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What does it mean to be "working in the trenches to bring assistance to those living with HIV and AIDS?" In my last blog I referred to my experience in Rwanda working to fight HIV/AIDS. Most of our work with World Relief was conducted through churches, with counselors and caregivers mobilized by their churches across the country of Rwanda. It doesn't mean that I (a white foreigner) was out walking the hills to bring this care and encouragement, but that Rwandan volunteers (the true heroes) were bringing this care. Isn't this the only truly sustainable way to deal with a problem as big as AIDS?  

I encourage you to watch the following video that tells the story of Francoise, a volunteer mobilized by her local church to care for families living with AIDS in Rwanda.  (Click here to watch the video.)

  

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On this last day of President Bush's eight years in office, I have been reflecting on how his presidency impacted me and my work. For most of those years I was based in central Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo) and was pretty distant from American politics. Even the 9/11 terrorism and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq didn't affect me nearly as much as they did my friends in the US. But I was deeply impacted by President Bush's fight against HIV/AIDS. The leadership and support that the U.S. government put into this fight was evident and much appreciated as we worked in the trenches to reduce the number of infections and bring assistance to those living with HIV and AIDS. President and Mrs. Bush made several trips to Africa to support this and other initiatives, and we were honored on one of those trips to host Mrs. Bush for a few hours in Rwanda -- showing her the work that we were doing through a local church. We presented her with the gift of a wood carving in the shape of the country of Rwanda, depicting scenes of caregivers mobilized throughout the country and working through their churches to help alleviate the suffering of those with this terrible infection.

Here are some samplings of what is being reported about this legacy that President Bush is leaving in Africa.

"... when a verdict is rendered on the Bush presidency, I hope that it will somehow incorporate the voices of millions of Africans who have had their hopes and lives restored by this President’s groundbreaking commitment to some of the world’s least fortunate men, women and children. There is no better example today of America’s compassion, commitment and can-do spirit than in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. I believe that every American and the whole world owes President Bush heartfelt thanks for refusing to write off a generation of Africans, not because it was politically expedient, but because it was the only moral thing to do."  Bush did the Moral Thing for Africa (Houston Chronicle) 

"President George W. Bush’s AIDS relief program aimed at Africa has exceeded its goal for the number of patients reached in its first five years, with more than 2.1 million men, women and children getting treatment." ... "A disease that was once thought to be a death sentence, a disease that was once thought sure to separate parents from their children, is now a disease that America is helping people to live with and to manage," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Washington.  U.S. AIDS Relief Program Exceeds Goal in Africa (Bloomberg News)

Bush's Plan for AIDS Relief Saved Lives (The Reporter)

The African People May be Alone: They'll Miss Mr. Bush (The National) 

Bush's Eight Years in the White House: The Verdict (The Scotsman) 

Nations that Love Bush (Newsweek)  

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The situation in Congo continues to be of great concern, with the United Nations recently reporting that a notorious Ugandan rebel group has killed more than 500 people and kidnapped over 400, including several over the past four days. "We are increasingly concerned about the humanitarian situation and continuing attacks by the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, on the civilian population in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Oriental Province,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to Congo, Alan Doss, is calling for the return of all boys and girls fighting in the war zone. "The recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups is a war crime and a crime against humanity. This literally destroys the future of this country,” said Mr. Doss, who is also the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo.

Following is a moving video on the situation in Congo:

Did you know that 2008 was the "International Year of Sanitation" as proclaimed by the United Nations? I'll bet that most of us missed out on this important and interesting fact. The UN's goal in making this declaration was to raise awareness about the growing problem of unclean water and poor sanitary practices. Around the world, 2.6 billion people do not have a basic human necessity -- a toilet. You can learn much more about this serious crisis by reading the UN's talking points for the International Year of Sanitation -- a very interesting document that describes how good sanitation is critically important to lift people out of poverty, ill health and early death. Here are just two facts from the document that are stunning:  

• On a typical day, more than half the hospital beds in Sub-Saharan Africa are occupied by patients suffering from diarrheal-related disease; most of them would not be there if they had a way to safely go to the toilet and wash their hands.
  
• Diarrhea is one of the biggest killers of children under five worldwide, alone accounting for 17% of deaths in this age group. More than 5,000 children die every day from diarrhea.

This hidden global scandal constitutes an affront to human dignity on a massive scale. The following video from UNICEF is compelling in its call to all of us to do something to address this issue of poor sanitation and unclean water:

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In my last post, I probably left some of you dangling when I raised questions about fair trade and its legitimacy. Truth be told, just as with multi-billion dollar investment funds, everyone and everything is open to fraud and misuse ... even fair-trade branding -- especially when the fair-trade label is used to gain market share and to sell coffee at higher prices.

About a year ago, "Fresh Cup Magazine" wrote an article on "The Future of Fair Trade: can the model continue to help farmers?" This paragraph in the article caught my attention:

"But despite continued market access and a guaranteed price [with fair-trade marketing], farmers are still struggling. Many coffee professionals believe price increases based strongly on quality — rather than the C-market and the fair-trade floor price that is tied to it — are the answer. Inman has been in the coffee business nearly 20 years and has not seen fair-trade pricing necessarily translate to increased quality down the line or to great improvements in growers' communities." 

"Non-certified coffees that earn fair-trade or higher prices (often called Direct Trade, a term that Chicago's Intelligentsia Coffee is in the process of trademarking) are what some have called the next level of sustainability. These programs, offered by Intelligentsia and other roasters like Portland Roasting, with its own Farm Friendly Direct label, aim to reward quality in the cup that, in theory, naturally will reap a price that exceeds the fair-trade floor and results in better livelihood for farmers." 

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