The Kyambura Women’s Coffee Cooperative is a community-based initiative designed to provide vocational training to women and an alternative and sustainable source of income. Twenty local women and their families are actively involved in the cooperative, many of whom are HIV positive and widowed. They tend to over 2,500 Arabica and Robusta coffee plants in 100 acres of rejuvenated land, and process the coffee by hand at a communal processing plant. Members of the cooperative commit to growing the coffee organically, without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
The coffee is sold to Volcanoes Safaris and served in all of our luxury lodges. The coffee demonstrations are popular with lodge guests who can see how African coffees are harvested and processed before sampling the ‘best cup of coffee in Uganda’.
The coffee plantation also acts as a wildlife buffer zone between the protected area of the gorge and local farmlands, helping to reduce human/wildlife conflict.