Our Tea, Our Voice

GIZ__JOERG_BOETHLING__2_.jpg © GIZ / Joerg Boethling

Facts

Commodity: Tea
 

Countries: Rwanda, Kenia, Indonesia
 

Target groups: 10,000 tea workers and smallholder farmers, 70% of them marginalized women
 

Total funding: 2,000,000 EUR
 

Duration: 01/2023 to 12/2026

Project description: 

The Project envisions a tea sector where leadership is inclusive, transformative and accountable, enabling women and other politically marginalized groups to exercise and enjoy their rights.

For women tea farmers and workers are to thrive, they must be able to participate in tea supply chains equally, fairly and productively. This requires adopting leadership models that value women’s lived experience, knowledge and skills.

The Project’s approach on transformative leadership encompasses three key spheres of change:

  • Individual: Enhancing how women see themselves in society and their confidence in taking action. 
  • Relational: Transforming power dynamics within the woman’s surrounding network.
  • Structural: Enacting broader changes, including informal changes, e.g. social norms and societal attitudes, or formal changes in workplace policies.

From the outset, the project will practice transformative leadership by centering local women, and Women’s Rights Organizations in the design pr:ocess, allowing them to identify the most meaningful change pathways within their contexts. 

Additionally, the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) will develop transformational leadership guidelines to enable ETP members to implement supportive sourcing practices.

Partner: 

  • Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA)
    KTDA Foundation Limited is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Kenya Tea Development Authority (“KTDA”) Holdings Limited. The objective of the Foundation is to initiate interventions that improve the welfare of small holder tea farmers in Kenya through strategic partnerships and a wide range of programmes.
  • Community Initiatives for Change and Development (CIFCAD)
    CIFCAD’s mission is to deliver locally sustainable and quality solutions to grassroot communities to enable them to gain control of their future. It works towards achieving transformative leadership and good governance through trainings on gender equality and accountability as well as on gender-based violence prevention and response.
  • FERWACOTHE (Fédération Rwandaise des Coopératives des Agriculteurs Thécoles)
    FERWACOTHE was founded in 2000 and represents Rwanda tea growers. It works to protect the interest of members and strengthens their capacity through trainings. Moreover, it offers advisory, advocacy and technical support to member tea cooperatives and promotes the cultivation of tea in Rwanda.
  • PT Perkebunan Nusantara (state tea producer PTPN)
    The Indonesian state-owned company PTPN8 has the largest tea plantation in the country and its activities include tea cultivation, processing and export sale.
  • Ethical Tea Partnership
    ETP is a global membership organisation that is catalysing long-term, systemic change, to benefit everybody who works in tea – especially people in tea-producing regions.
  • Organisation Dignité en Détention/Rwanda (DIDE Rwanda)
    Organisation Dignité en Detention/ Rwanda (DIDE Rwanda) is non-government organisation working in peacebuilding, including the institutional capacity of correctional services and societal healing. Its areas of expertise include youth and women empowerment, education and vocational training, child protection, and collaborative economic livelihoods.
  • Twinings
  • Ringtons
  • Ostfriesische Teegesellschaft (OTG)

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