On World Water Day we celebrate ten years of working to end the global water crisis.
Celebrating ten years of UK Coffee Week - £800,000 raised and 45,000 lives changed.
As UK Coffee Week enters its second decade raising money for Project Waterfall, we look back at our story and how it began.
So far we’ve helped to fund 13 projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Uganda. This year we are aiming to hit our target of raising £1 million to change lives in coffee-growing communities.
Both UK Coffee Week and Project Waterfall were created in 2011 by Jeffrey Young, the founder and managing director of the Allegra Group.
By this point Jeffrey had worked in the coffee industry for ten years, with the sector enjoying huge year-on-year growth. Allegra was one of the world’s leading foodservice consultancies, and the undisputed authority on global coffee trends.
“I’d benefitted profoundly from the coffee industry,” he says, “And I’ve always believed that we have a responsibility to give back. But after ten years I had to ask myself, what had I done? The uncomfortable answer was nothing, and that had to change.”
Jeffrey was well-connected in the coffee world and was known as a spokesperson for the industry.
“I had many high-level working partnerships and friendships in the sector,” he says, “and I thought ‘now is the time to use this influence for good’.”
His first thought was that if everyone added just 5 pence to every cup of coffee sold across the UK for one week, a million pounds could be raised.
So he founded Project Waterfall, a charity working to end the water crisis in coffee-growing communities and UK Coffee Week to raise funds for it.
“Water was an obvious choice,” he says, “When we drink coffee we’re drinking 95 per cent water and it needs to be clean and of the highest quality. And it seemed to me that by fundraising to provide clean water we could make a difference to tens of thousands of people.
“Water is the basic essence of life. Poverty is a complex issue, but I thought let’s start there and work our way up.
“My dream was to be able to provide clean water to families within the coffee belt. They didn’t have clean water to give their children – giving them unclean water would make them sick and even die, but if they didn’t give them water to drink, they would die. What a choice!
“I had watched the coffee industry grow and there we were in the western world drinking our flat whites and lattes. What does 5p matter to us compared to the difference it can make at origin to the people who need clean water?
“It’s wrong that while we enjoy the purest filtered water in our coffee, the communities at the end of its supply chain face a water crisis.”
Every year since then UK Coffee Week supporters have raised money for Project Waterfall in a variety of ways, from donating 10p on every coffee or £1 per kilo sold, to holding events, competitions and raffles.
Project Waterfall always works with trusted partners who understand and listen to the communities they work with to find the best solution.
Access to clean water changes everything. Child mortality rates drop. Girls can spend more time in school and women can start their own businesses.
Regardless of where a community is, or how big it is, there are tangible and sustainable solutions to the water crisis.
Since 2018 the majority of funds raised during UK Coffee Week have supported Project Waterfall’s partnership with WaterAid UK in the Jabi Tehnan district of Ethiopia. For more information on our current project visit here.
We’ve achieved so much and are grateful to all our amazing partners, sponsors, and to every independent coffee shop, chain or customer who has taken part.
We’ll soon be announcing our dates for UK Coffee Week 2021…so watch this space and help us reach the next stage in our journey.
Ends
Addis Ababa, Kibebe Tsehay Orphanage, Ethiopia. Funds from our 2016 campaign supported this project.
Credit: Splash/ Gavin Gough
