Creating a fairer, better, more sustainable tea industry for workers, farmers and the environment
The Independent
How the pandemic is having a dark impact on child marriage
23 March 2021
With UNICEF's recent report indicating that ten million additional child marriages may occur worldwide before the end of 2030, in this article for The Independent we explore how our Improving Lives programme with UNICEF is helping to prevent child marriage across tea estates in Assam, India.
The article outlines how our work with adolescent girls and boys, as well as the wider community, addresses this issue - and how our programme has creatively adapted to continue supporting tea communities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click here to learn more about other innovative ways we've responded to the pandemic through our programme with UNICEF in Assam.
You can also read more here on how we’re supporting tea famers, workers and their families globally to adapt to – and address – the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19.
India produces over a fifth of the world’s tea and Indian tea is crucial to most tea blends. Two million people work in the Indian tea industry – the majority on tea estates. Assam is a key tea growing region in the North East of India, and nearly 20% of its population live and work in tea communities.
The global COVID-19 pandemic poses severe threats to tea farmers, workers and their families. Vulnerable tea communities need our support more than ever.
Thwango Ndalama is a result oriented and accomplished Programme Manager with over 15 years’ experience working with international organisations on sustainable development. Her areas of expertise are livelihoods programme design and management, food security and agricultural value chains, client donor relationship management and monitoring and evaluation.
Thwango has been with the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) since 2018, leading the team in Malawi, overseeing the delivery of all ETP’s activity in this African country. Thwango is passionate about helping the most marginalised tea workers and smallholder farmers to develop their skills and diversify their incomes to improve economic resilience.
As Country Manager, Ranjana oversees the timely and effective implementation of projects, identifies and nurtures business pilots, advises on policy, supports the communication of ETP’s work, enables shared learning, builds partnerships and drives ETP’s strategy for India.
Ranjana joins the Ethical Tea Partnership from a 12-year tenure at Oxfam India, where she most recently led the Responsible Supply Chain programmes in tea and sugar. Whilst at Oxfam India, Ranajana worked extensively on gender, livelihood and health initiatives, alongside developing programmes, training and the strategic management of grants and stakeholder engagement.
Prior to Oxfam, Ranaja worked across several national and International organisations. She holds a Masters in Economics from Kolkata University, and Masters in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies Netherlands. She is a Humphrey Hubert Fulbright Fellow from Cornell University (2017-18).
Based in Kigali, Rwanda, and overseeing our activity across Africa, Liberal supports our regional teams in Kenya, Malawi and Rwanda to further ETP’s mission. An advocate for the power of business to have a positive impact, Liberal has a strong experience in leadership for development, advising on climate finance and strategy, leading NGOs and working with donors. He joins with strategic management experience from his time at Grow Africa, an organisation that works to increase responsible private sector investment in agriculture, as well as at the Green Climate Fund – among others.
Liberal draws upon his strong experience of systemic, transformational change and agriculture to ensure that our work across Africa has real impact for tea communities.
Evangelyn is based in Sri Lanka, and she supports and implements the Ethical Tea Partnership’s project activity on the ground. Prior to joining the Ethical Tea Partnership, Evangelyn worked at World Vision Lanka (WVL) and the Plantation Communities Project for more than 10 years and brings a wealth of experience working directly with tea workers, resident communities, and tea estate management.
Evangelyn’s strengths are her ability to understand complex issues on tea estates, and working across multi stakeholder partnerships to deliver impactful programmes and initiatives.
Neha leads on the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) aspects of our Plantation Community Empowerment Programme in Assam, a grassroots project that empowers communities to identify and resolve the challenges they face.
Neha joins with over six years of MEL experience, most recently at non-profit Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India, where she worked in Assam. With robust experience of working on development projects, Neha is particularly interested in the intersection between MEL and gender, and she is passionate about using insights to pertinently support gender equality.
Neha’s other interests include children’s rights, disability, and research. Her practical experience is complemented by her academic studies; most recently, Neha completed a post-graduate degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Jenny Costelloe will be moderating this session exploring living wage in Assam’s tea sector.
Jenny leads the Ethical Tea Partnership’s (ETP) global team to drive long-term, systemic change across three areas in tea – economics, equality and environment. Jenny is passionate about mobilising ETP’s global team to develop programmes, run pilots and influence policies, and create transformative change across tea supply chains to achieve ETP’s vision of a thriving, socially just and environmentally sustainable tea sector.
She has extensive experience in delivering sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships. Jenny lived in Singapore for 11 years, and was Director of Country Partnerships at Grow Asia (a World Economic Forum initiative focused on sustainable agriculture in ASEAN). Jenny was appointed as an Ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s “New Vision for Agriculture” in 2016.
Akhil Bharatiya Chah Mazdoor Sangh (Assam) Central Committee's President, Royal Soreng
Royal Soreng is the President of Akhil Bharatiya Chah Mazdoor Sangh (Assam); Central Committee, a union representing tea estate workers.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay's Assistant Professor at the Centre for Policy Studies, Dr. Rahul Suresh Sapkal
Dr. Rahul Suresh Sapkal is currently Assistant Professor at the Centre for Policy Studies, at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Prior to this, Rahul worked as Assistant Professor (Economics) at the School of Management and Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and National Law University, Mumbai.
Rahul holds a PhD degree in Law and Economics from the European Doctorate Program in Law and Economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a Master’s degree in Development Studies from TISS Mumbai.
At present, in collaboration with ActionAid India, Rahul is heading three rounds of large-scale national surveys on informal and migrant workers, titled “Workers in the Time of COVID-19”. He is also an expert nominated member of the Drafting Committee for Indian Labour Standards Leveraging the Human Capital of Brick Kilns Workers, under the Social Responsibility Sectional Committee of Bureau of Indian Standard and Ministry of Labour and Employment, part of the Government of India.
As part of his research, Rahul has been working as a consultant to CRY India, Praxis, ITF, ActionAid India, Oxfam India, Fair Labour Organisation and CORO India. In 2020-21, Rahul led Oxfam India’s Living Wage report for Assam tea plantation workers.
Tata Consumer Products' Director of Sustainability, Dr. Anurag Priyadarshi
Dr. Anurag Priyadarshi leads the Corporate Social Responsibility, Business and Human Rights (BHR) and Nature Based Solutions areas at Tata Sustainability Group.
Anurag has more than 20 years of experience in sustainable agriculture and sustainability in industries such as food & beverages, textiles and electronics. He has been on the Boards of Rainforest Alliance USA, Ethical Tea Partnership, and India Plastics Pact, and is a founding member of Trustea – the India sustainable tea program.
The Indian Express' Deputy Associate Editor, Udit Misra
Udit Misra is Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. In the past, he has reported for leading newspapers, magazines and TV news channels such as Forbes India, Business Standard, Mint and CNN-IBN.
Udit holds a Master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics. In 2012, he completed the Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellowship, hosted by the University of Westminster.
Unilever's Procurement Manager - Living Wage, Priya Agrawal
Priya Agrawal is a Procurement and Supply Chain professional, and has been with Unilever for over 10 years.
Currently based in Switzerland and Procurement Manager – Living Wage, her remit focuses on implementing Unilever’s living wage commitment, to ensure everyone in Unilever’s direct value chain earns a living wage.
JANE NYAMBURA, Stakeholder & Partnerships Manager, Ethical Tea Partnership
Jane has been working at the ETP for over eleven years’ implementing and overseeing programme activity in Kenya. Jane has a wealth of experience working across tea supply chains having previously worked for the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for seven years and three years at Partner Africa.
Jane brings a wealth of knowledge to her role as Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager, with extensive experience of managing and developing strategic stakeholder relationships to develop and implement programmes to improve livelihoods of tea farmers.
Jane holds an MBA in Strategic Management and is passionate about improving the working environment to improve gender equality for those in the tea industry and wider tea communities.
THWANGO NDALAMA, Country Manager, Malawi, Ethical Tea Partnership
Thwango Ndalama is a result oriented and accomplished Programme Manager with over 15 years’ experience working with international organisations on sustainable development. Her areas of expertise are livelihoods programme design and management, food security and agricultural value chains, client donor relationship management and monitoring and evaluation.
Thwango is now in her fourth year at the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), leading the team in Malawi, overseeing the delivery of all ETP’s activity in this African country. Thwango is passionate about helping the most marginalised tea workers and smallholder farmers to develop their skills and diversify their incomes to improve economic resilience.
David Meek is an experienced, innovative and growth orientated board chair and non-executive director with a proven track record of leadership and strategic execution across multiple global and regional businesses and charity organisations.
Having chosen a career in global finance more than 30 years ago, David successfully expanded into other areas of interest including technology, real estate, conservation and sustainability, bringing a unique range of expertise. David has operated at the highest level across the UK, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the US and the Middle East, embracing cultural differences to strengthen organisations for the benefit of stakeholders and wider society.
David is Chair of the regulated financial services company, Equiti Capital, and a non executive director of sustainable real estate developer, This Land, where he also chairs the Investment Committee. In the third sector he is Chair of Getting on Board, a trustee of the British Liver trust and chair of their Audit & Risk committee, a trustee of Twycross Zoo and a mentor at Cambridge University’s Enterprise programme.
A strong believer in the importance of lifelong learning, David most recently completed his MSc in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Birkbeck, University of London. When not travelling David is based in London and also enjoys the fresh sea air on the South coast with his partner and two dogs, with interests ranging from painting to motor sport and many things in between.
Rachel has been with the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) for over ten years, working previously as a Senior Programme Manager with strong experience delivering multi-stakeholder programmes and projects to address challenging sector wide sustainability issues.
Rachel now is ETP’s Environment and Climate Lead and has a strong passion in understanding the environmental impact on tea supply chains. Rachel is focused on delivering impact across all of ETP’s programmes and pilots, with a lens focused on climate resilient agriculture, zero deforestation, and carbon counting to encourage a ‘net zero’ tea industry.
Jenny Costelloe leads the Ethical Tea Partnership’s (ETP) global team to drive long-term, systemic change across three areas in tea – economics, equality and environment. Jenny is passionate about mobilising ETP’s global team to develop programmes, run pilots and influence policies, and create transformative change across tea supply chains to achieve ETP’s vision of a thriving, socially just and environmentally sustainable tea sector.
She has extensive experience in delivering sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships. Jenny lived in Singapore for 11 years, and was Director of Country Partnerships at Grow Asia (a World Economic Forum initiative focused on sustainable agriculture in ASEAN). Jenny was appointed as an Ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s “New Vision for Agriculture” in 2016.
LEENA CAMADOO, Gender & Livelihoods Lead, Ethical Tea Partnership
With over fifteen years’ of experience in value chain development, Leena is passionate about reducing inequality through market systems and gender transformative approaches.
Leena was a Senior Advisor at Oxfam prior to joining the Ethical Tea Partnership and her experience ranges from directly implementing grassroots training programmes in rural Nicaragua to ethical sourcing as well as working with multinational companies to address sustainability and human rights issues in their supply chains.
Bharat works directly with communities on the ground, as part of our innovative Plantation Community Empowerment Programme. This grassroots initiative brings communities and estate management together to jointly resolve issues, and so improve living and working conditions on tea estates in Assam, India.
Bharat joins with strong experience of the tea sector, having previously worked at Soumer Organic Farmers’ Producer Organisation. Bharat also spent five years working on a community-led project on tea estates, supporting workers to tackle health issues.
Based in Assam, India, Joshila supports our ground-breaking Plantation Community Empowerment Programme in the region, which empowers tea communities to identify and jointly resolve the challenges they face.
Joshila joins with experience from the development sector, having previously worked on projects tackling gender equality, child rights and education issues in tea estates.
As Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager, Tejo works closely with tea farmers, workers, estate management, and key industry stakeholders to drive ETP’s Strategy2030 across Indonesia.
Tejo joins with over 13-years of experience in the agricultural sector, spanning palm oil, corn, cocoa and tobacco. Most recently, Tejo worked at the Partnership for Action Against Child Labour in Agriculture, where he was responsible for managing partnerships to tackle child labour.
Tejo draws on his robust stakeholder engagement experience to ensure that our initiatives in Indonesia appropriately respond to tea communities’ needs.
Leading our activity across East Asia, Xing Ma works directly with tea communities in China and Indonesia to ensure ETP’s programmes have real impact in both countries.
Prior to joining ETP, Xing worked as a Research Scientist at Unilever. She draws upon her strong experience of global tea supply chains and sustainable agronomy to ensure that our work in East Asia is pertinent to the tea sector.
Working on the ground with tea farmers in Malawi, Lickson supports them with our lending and saving scheme as well as environmental programmes. In the final stages of a postgraduate degree in Transformative Community Development at Mzuzu University, Lickson has worked on a number of climate change and economic resilience programmes with international development organisations.
A Masters graduate in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, Payal completed her BA in Sociology at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.
17:15 Launch: Ceylon Tea Sustainability Framework
The Sri Lanka tea industry’s “Ceylon Tea Roadmap 2030” aims to create a socially responsible, sustainable business model for the entire value chain. Its goal is to positively impact the lives and livelihoods of 2 million people; almost 10% of the national population, mostly women. The Roadmap’s reach also spans climate and nature, as well as overall business performance.
The Roadmap focuses on short, mid, and long-term objectives to improve industry viability, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and other sustainability frameworks. Phase I is already operational at ground level.
During this very challenging time for Sri Lanka, the industry invited corporates, development and donor agencies to support the rollout of the Roadmap – the first in the tea world done at this scale.
16:30 Closing remarks: TEA: What now?
Oxfam GB CEO Danny Sriskandarajah shared his takeaways from the day’s dynamic sessions as he closed the conference by asking how businesses can best implement their learnings from this year’s TEAM UP.
Danny has been Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam GB since January 2019. Prior to that he spent six years as Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He has previously been Director General of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Interim Director of the Commonwealth Foundation and held various posts at the Institute for Public Policy Research.
From 2018 to 2019 he was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, co-chaired by Jack Ma and Melinda Gates, and from 2015 to 2016 a member of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Finance. He is a Trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee.
13:30 Equality: What do guidance & frameworks to prevent Gender-based violence look like in practice for tea companies?
Globally, women are more vulnerable than their male counterparts. Women in tea communities are particularly vulnerable, due to cultural norms in many tea-producing countries, poverty and gender-biased workplaces. Gender-based violence (GBV) remains evident in tea communities.
In this session, leaders who have made commitments and been implementing guidance and frameworks that aim to address GBV shared their stories and experiences. Our panel of experts invited delegates to discuss:
– How do you make sure that frameworks are contextualised?
– What steps can you take in your business to reduce the risk of GBV in your supply chain?
– Who are the key actors that we need to engage with to reduce GBV, and what are their roles?
– What outcomes would you expect to see on the ground as a result of effective framework implementation?
– How do you measure impact?
Following COP26 in Glasgow, governments and companies have set themselves ambitious targets to reach Net Zero by 2050. Implementing plans to reach this target is no small ask.
In this opening session, we heard from the Ethical Tea Partnership’s expert climate lead on how the tea sector can drive net-zero transformation. A multi-stakeholder panel assessed how players across the tea value chain can transition from strategy to practice, as together we discussed what this means for the future of tea.
ANDY BROWN, Managing Director, Taylors of Harrogate
Andy Brown joined Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate as Group Finance Director in 2001, becoming Managing Director of Taylors of Harrogate in 2009. Andy is also a member of the Collaborative CEO, a group of five key executives, who take shared responsibility for the organisational strategy and development of the Bettys & Taylors Group.
Before joining Bettys & Taylors, Andy spent his early career working in various finance and general management roles within the food and consumer goods industry at companies including Procter & Gamble, Mars and Asda. Andy has a degree in Chemical Engineering from Birmingham University and is a Chartered Management Accountant.
Andy has previously been a Governor at Leeds Beckett University and is also actively involved in a number of trade and sustainability bodies within the tea and coffee industries, including being a Board member of the UK Tea and Infusions Association. He is currently co-chair of the Global Tea Coalition.
Click here to read some initial insights from Andy on living wage and income, ahead of him sharing more at TEAM UP on 21 June.
ZBIGNIEW LEWICKI, Chief R&D and Sustainability Officer, ekaterra
Zbigniew is Chief R&D and Sustainability Officer of ekaterra (Unilever’s tea division), shaping global innovation and ESG strategy for the largest botanical beverages business with vertically integrated supply chains. He is a Board Member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, contributing to work on the 2030 Tea Industry Roadmap.
He has spent 25 years in various leadership roles in Unilever, including Pepsi-Lipton Joint Venture. His purpose is to enable sustainable food chains, and to build activist teams. Zbigniew invests in sustainability start-ups, and is a smallholder of an ecological farmland in the north of Poland.
Giles is Sustainability Director at Tesco. He leads a team of human rights, environment, agriculture and waste experts around the world, responsible for ensuring good working conditions and sustainable practices across Tesco’s supply chain.
Prior to joining Tesco, Giles worked for the UK Govt’s Department for International Development for ten years, including in countries such as Kenya, Rwanda and Iraq. In 2007 he wrote the activist book ‘Aid and Other Dirty Business’, on how western aid, trade and globalisation affect Africa, published in the UK, US and Canada.
DR SHARON HALL, Chief Executive, United Kingdom Tea and Infusions Association
Dr Sharon Hall is the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Tea and Infusions Association (UKTIA), a role she took on in 2018. Her previous roles include Director General of both the Potato Processors’ Association (PPA) and the Snack, Nut & Crisp Manufacturers’ Association (SNACMA), where she gained extensive experience of high-level stakeholder engagement, strategic leadership, communications and issues management.
She is currently Vice President of Tea & Herbal Infusions Europe (THIE) and chairs THIE’s EU Green Deal Steering Group and the Plastics & Packaging Working Group. Sharon also represents THIE on environmental and sustainability matters at FoodDrinkEurope.
Sharon has the honour of being the current Chair of the FAO-Inter-Governmental Group on Tea.
Sharon has an honours degree in Applied Biology, a Masters in Science Communication and a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (Plant Science).
PRIYA B, Head of Sustainability, Tata Consumer Products Limited
Priya has over seventeen years’ experience in sustainability and climate change; including sustainable strategy development, resource efficiency (energy, carbon, water, waste, wastewater, biodiversity), sustainable supply chain management, sustainable product stewardship, ESG analytics, circular economy/end of use as well as sustainable transparency and disclosure.
Priya has worked across the retail and apparel, FMCG, real estate, agri-commodities and cement sectors, among others. Priya has also worked with multilateral agencies including The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation on low carbon growth and waste management policy development at a national level.
Priya has co-authored several thought leadership documents on waste management, water management, green growth, sustainability in the real estate sector and sustainability reporting, as well as sustainability trends in the financial, oil and gas industries.
Priya currently heads sustainability at Tata Consumer Products.
Ruchira Joshi is the Executive Director at IDH UK. IDH brings governments, companies, CSOs and financiers together in action driven coalitions to progress on achieving Better Jobs, Better Incomes and a Better Environment – its three impact areas.
Ruchira has previously held roles as the Head of Responsible Sourcing at ASOS, and Programme Director at the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). She has life-long passion for working towards ensuring that global supply chains are inclusive of smallholder farmers and workers as integral stakeholders. Her key achievements include designing an innovative Volume Based Fee financing mechanism for smallholder capacity building at BCI, setting up the ASOS Responsible Sourcing Programme for third-party brands, and establishing IDH in the UK.
Ruchira has an MA from SOAS in International Development and has served as a trustee of the Sustainable Fibre Alliance, a standard holding body for responsible cashmere production in Mongolia and China.
PAUL SCHOENMAKERS, Impactus Prime, Tony’s Chocolonely
Tony’s Chocolonely exists to revolutionise the chocolate industry and make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate. Not just their own chocolate, but all chocolate worldwide. As Impactus Prime, Paul is first in line to make change happen: leading Tony’s impact strategy and heading up the Impact team.
On the surface, Impact is all about outcomes and effects. But at its heart, it’s all about relationships. From collaborating with the cocoa farmers who supply Tony’s – including all programs and activities involving partner cooperatives in Ghana and Ivory Coast — to working with governments, NGOs and certifiers to accelerate change in the industry. Including working to get legislation in place that holds companies accountable for human rights violations in their supply chains.
Paul and his team also measure the impact of Tony’s 5 Sourcing Principles (100% traceable beans, paying a higher price that enables a living income, strong farmers, long-term relationships and quality & productivity). Not just reporting on progress, but improving on it by using the data to do things better.
AMARPAL TAKK, Group General Counsel & Company Secretary, Camellia
Amarpal Takk Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Amarpal advises the Board on legal, regulatory, governance, compliance, risk and ESG issues. He is a member of the Strategy Committee and other Board committees.
The world’s largest privately owned tea producer, Camellia is a global group investing in agricultural as well as food service and engineering operations.
LEENA CAMADOO, Gender & Livelihoods Lead, Ethical Tea Partnership
With over fifteen years’ of experience in value chain development, Leena is passionate about reducing inequality through market systems and gender transformative approaches.
Leena was a Senior Advisor at Oxfam prior to joining the Ethical Tea Partnership and her experience ranges from directly implementing grassroots training programmes in rural Nicaragua to ethical sourcing as well as working with multinational companies to address sustainability and human rights issues in their supply chains.
Evangelyn is based in Sri Lanka, and she supports and implements the Ethical Tea Partnership’s project activity on the ground. Prior to joining the Ethical Tea Partnership, Evangelyn worked at World Vision Lanka (WVL) and the Plantation Communities Project for more than 10 years and brings a wealth of experience working directly with tea workers, resident communities, and tea estate management.
Evangelyn’s strengths are her ability to understand complex issues on tea estates, and working across multi stakeholder partnerships to deliver impactful programmes and initiatives.
Jane has been working at the ETP for over eleven years’ implementing and overseeing programme activity in Kenya. Jane has a wealth of experience working across tea supply chains having previously worked for the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for seven years and three years at Partner Africa.
Jane brings a wealth of knowledge to her role as Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager, with extensive experience of managing and developing strategic stakeholder relationships to develop and implement programmes to improve livelihoods of tea farmers.
Jane holds an MBA in Strategic Management and is passionate about improving the working environment to improve gender equality for those in the tea industry and wider tea communities.
JANE NYAMBURA, Stakeholder & Partnerships Manager, Ethical Tea Partnership
Jane has been working at the ETP for over eleven years’ implementing and overseeing programme activity in Kenya. Jane has a wealth of experience working across tea supply chains having previously worked for the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) for seven years and three years at Partner Africa.
Jane brings a wealth of knowledge to her role as Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager, with extensive experience of managing and developing strategic stakeholder relationships to develop and implement programmes to improve livelihoods of tea farmers.
Jane holds an MBA in Strategic Management and is passionate about improving the working environment to improve gender equality for those in the tea industry and wider tea communities.
THWANGO NDALAMA, Country Manager, Malawi, Ethical Tea Partnership
Thwango Ndalama is a result oriented and accomplished Programme Manager with over 15 years’ experience working with international organisations on sustainable development. Her areas of expertise are livelihoods programme design and management, food security and agricultural value chains, client donor relationship management and monitoring and evaluation.
Thwango is now in her fourth year at the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), leading the team in Malawi, overseeing the delivery of all ETP’s activity in this African country. Thwango is passionate about helping the most marginalised tea workers and smallholder farmers to develop their skills and diversify their incomes to improve economic resilience.
Rachel has been with the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) for over ten years, working previously as a Senior Programme Manager with strong experience delivering multi-stakeholder programmes and projects to address challenging sector wide sustainability issues.
Rachel now is ETP’s Environment and Climate Lead and has a strong passion in understanding the environmental impact on tea supply chains. Rachel is focused on delivering impact across all of ETP’s programmes and pilots, with a lens focused on climate resilient agriculture, zero deforestation, and carbon counting to encourage a ‘net zero’ tea industry.
Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah has been Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam Great Britain since January 2019. Prior to that he spent six years as Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. He has previously been Director General of the Royal Commonwealth Society, Interim Director of the Commonwealth Foundation and held various posts at the Institute for Public Policy Research. From 2018 to 2019 he was a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, co-chaired by Jack Ma and Melinda Gates, and from 2015 to 2016 a member of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Finance. He is a Trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee.
BEA RUOFF, Head of Operations, ACT on Living Wages
As Head of Operations, ACT on Living Wages, Bea Ruoff leads ACT’s work on responsible purchasing practices – from development to monitoring and accountability measures – and oversees operations of the foundation.
Prior to joining ACT, she was a researcher and teacher with a focus on labour market development, inequality, and wage setting in global production networks and has designed and managed multi-stakeholder research projects at the Institute for International Political Economy, Berlin School of Economics and Law.
JORDY VAN HONK, Global Director Agriculture Commodities, IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative
Jordy van Honk works as global director agriculture commodities at IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative. In this role, he leads the IDH sector programs in cocoa, tea and coffee, and has a specific focus on engaging business on the themes of living wage and living income. Jordy is part of the management team of IDH.
Over the past years he has been part of many leading initiatives on living wage and living income, including the Malawi Tea 2020 program (as Chair of the Steering Committee), the Dutch retail bananas commitment, the Taskforce for Coffee Living Income and living income initiatives in cocoa including the Dutch Initiative on Sustainable Cocoa (DISCO) and Beyond Chocolate.
Jordy has worked for IDH for 11 years. He holds a Master degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam. Before joining IDH in 2010, Jordy worked for the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Government of The Netherlands in its industry and trade department.
WINFRIDAH MORAA NYAKWARA, Senior Social Sustainability Manager, Africa & South Asia, Unilever
Winnie is a Kenyan by birth. She is an experienced human rights lawyer, strategist and a gender specialist. She has over 14 years’ cumulative experience in human rights, gender, and sustainability work in both private and nonprofit sector. Winfridah has extensive experience in the implementation of human rights due diligence procedures, identification, and remediation of endemic human rights issues across global value chains.
Before joining Unilever, she worked with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights as a human rights officer for over 5 years. She then went on to join Unilever in December 2013 as the Welfare Manager responsible for embedding human rights in the tea plantations in Kenya. While in the tea plantations, Winfridah was instrumental in setting and implementing the women safety program as part of the over human rights strategy. Thereafter, she moved to regional role as the Integrated Social Sustainability Manager, Africa at Unilever.
Currently Winfridah is a senior manager social sustainability with Unilever. Winnie is part of the global tam responsible for the implementation of the human rights strategy for the business. In this role, Winfridah provides global supply chain thematic leadership on gender and child labour and geographically supports the implementation of the human rights strategy in Africa and South Asia.
MANISHA MAJUMDAR, Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund Manager, IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative
Manisha Majumdar is the Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund Manager at IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative. The Fund will accelerate the scale of the UN Women ‘Global Women’s Safety Framework in Rural Spaces’, created with the support of Unilever.
A postgraduate from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Manisha has two decades of evolved experience on gender equality, social inclusion, and human rights at policy and programme levels both in development and humanitarian settings. Manisha has previously worked at Christian Aid, Oxfam, Concern Worldwide in India, Asia, the Middle East region, and on short-term assignments with the Government of Odisha, the United Nations.
DR PAULA HAMILTON, Head of Collective Action, Ethical Trading Initiative
Dr Paula Hamilton is the Ethical Trading Initiative’s (ETI) Head of Collective Action, leading the organisation’s collective action with its members in response to Human Rights at work abuses and proactive strategies for innovation, policy change and other areas linked to ETI’s mission and vision.
Previously she held a number of senior roles within the International Transport Workers Federation, including leading its work on logistics and global supply chains, union capacity building and sectoral representation at international level, and senior roles within the UK trade union movement.
Her interests include social, economic and reproductive justice, including non-executive director roles at a number of charities and not for profit organisations. She has a doctorate from Queen Mary University of London in the field of labour and economic geography, along with a Masters in Social and Public Policy from the University of Brighton and a BA Hons in Politics and Development Studies from the University of Sussex.
John Davison joined Unilever in March 2021 as Chief Executive Officer of its tea business which was renamed ekaterra in July.
John is a highly accomplished and experienced international business leader with a diverse background in several consumer product companies. Before Unilever, he was Chief Executive Officer of Zuellig Pharma, Asia’s leading Healthcare Services Group based in Singapore with $13 billion sales and 13,500 employees across the region. Prior to his successful six-year tenure at the helm of Zuellig Pharma, John held senior executive positions at Danone, Royal Numico B.V. and Diageo PLC.
He has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and US. He is a British citizen, from Newcastle. Holding a Masters degree in Modern and Medieval Languages from Cambridge University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, John’s early career was spent in consulting at McKinsey.
Jenny Costelloe leads the Ethical Tea Partnership’s (ETP) global team to drive long-term, systemic change across three areas in tea – economics, equality and environment. Jenny is passionate about mobilising ETP’s global team to develop programmes, run pilots and influence policies, and create transformative change across tea supply chains to achieve ETP’s vision of a thriving, socially just and environmentally sustainable tea sector.
She has extensive experience in delivering sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships. Jenny lived in Singapore for 11 years, and was Director of Country Partnerships at Grow Asia (a World Economic Forum initiative focused on sustainable agriculture in ASEAN). Jenny was appointed as an Ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s “New Vision for Agriculture” in 2016.
CLAUDE BIZIMANA, CEO, National Agricultural Export Development Board
Claude Bizimana is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB), a commercial public institution in Rwanda in charge of exports of agricultural and livestock products.
As the CEO of NAEB, Claude strives to establish relations and cooperation with regional and international organisations with the aim of improving operations in the tea value chain and collaboration among stakeholders.
SUDI BIKO MATARA, CEO, Kenya Tea Development Agency Foundation
Sudi Biko Matara is a public and private sector specialist with over 15 years’ experience in strategy and business sustainability; participatory development; project management; networks and partnership building; gender, policy and advocacy; monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning; knowledge management; external relations; resource mobilisation; establishing governance structures and systems; designing and implementing communication strategies; grants administration and management.
Currently, Sudi is the Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) Foundation, a subsidiary of KTDA Holdings Ltd, and oversees the Group’s Corporate Social Investments as part of organisational business sustainability.
ALICE ALLAN, Team Leader, FCDO Work and Opportunities for Women Programme
Alice Allan has 20 years’ experience working for equality and decent work. She specialises in facilitating engagement between the private sector, civil society and government. She also works at Business Fights Poverty as Challenge Director, and has previously worked at the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CARE International and Amnesty International.
For the first time, we are working to address equality issues in the Indonesian tea sector. As an initial step for this new activity, we’re consulting with UNICEF Indonesia about how we can apply UNICEF’s Family-Friendly Policies to the tea sector. These policies, such as paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, childcare and child benefits, are based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and relevant principles from the UN Global Compact (UNGC).
We’re speaking directly with over 50 workers across nine tea estates. Our aim is to build a better understanding of the gender and equality issues they face, and to determine the most effective next steps to address these issues. Guidance from UNICEF Indonesia has helped us to conduct our baseline assessment.
Our initial research was delivered in 2021, and the results will feed into the UNGC’s working group for shared learning.
Jenny Costelloe’s focus is on leading the Ethical Tea Partnership’s global team to drive forward long-term, systemic change across three areas in tea – economics, equality and environment.
Jenny has extensive experience in delivering sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships. Jenny lived in Singapore for 11 years, and was Director of Country Partnerships at Grow Asia (a World Economic Forum initiative focused on sustainable agriculture in ASEAN). Jenny was appointed as an Ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s “New Vision for Agriculture” in 2016.
Jenny is passionate about mobilising ETP’s global team to develop programmes, run pilots and influence policies and create transformative change across tea supply chains to achieve our vision of a thriving, socially just and environmentally sustainable tea sector.
Simon Hotchkin
ETP Vice-Chair
Simon Hotchkin has worked in the tea and coffee industry for over twenty years, in which ten years have been at Taylors of Harrogate – where he is currently the Head of Sustainable Development.
Under Simon’s leadership, Taylors of Harrogate was awarded the UN Global Climate Action Award at COP26 for its work on Carbon Neutrality and improving farmer livelihoods in Kenya.
Simon is committed to working on projects and programmes that help slow down the climate crisis and benefit tea famers and their wider communities.
David Meek
ETP Chair
David Meek has over 30 years’ experience in senior leadership positions spanning numerous global and regional businesses worldwide.
David started his career in global finance before moving into technology, real estate, conservation, and sustainability. David has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in governance, risk, and transformative change.
A strong believer in the importance of lifelong learning, David most recently completed his MSc in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Birkbeck, University of London.
David is interested in utilising his wealth of knowledge and expertise to help the Ethical Tea Partnership build on its strategic partnerships to address deep-rooted issues in tea supply chains.
Jenny leads operations and strategy at the Ethical Tea Partnership, including overseeing the delivery of programmes, business pilots and policy work in seven tea-producing origins in Africa and Asia. Her focus is on driving long-term, systemic change across three themes in tea: economics, equality and environment. With a specialist focus on the food and agriculture sector, Jenny has built a varied and extensive career in delivering sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Jenny lived in Singapore for 11 years, where her passion for sustainable and inclusive agriculture value chains was nurtured. Whilst in Singapore, she held the position of Director, Country Partnerships at Grow Asia (a World Economic Forum initiative focused on sustainable agriculture in ASEAN). Prior to Grow Asia, Jenny enjoyed a number of consulting roles where she provided sustainability advisory to organisations including GIC, Singapore Exchange, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Cargill, Diageo, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Singapore Management University, government of Singapore, Ministry of Agriculture (Cambodia), Brookings Institute, Food Industry Asia, Verdant Bioscience, Mercy Corps and CSIRO (Australia).
Jenny has a BSc in Natural Sciences (Physics) from the University of Bath, a professional diploma in Marketing Communications, and an MBA (Strategy) from Nanyang Business School in Singapore. In 2016, she was appointed as an Ambassador for the World Economic Forum’s “New Vision for Agriculture” and became a partnership practitioner, completing The Partnering Initiative’s certification. In 2017 she was selected for the Global Institute for Tomorrow’s “Global Leaders Programme”. Jenny sat on the board of the Rice Bowl Index (a food security ranking for Asia) until 2017 and was Vice-Chair of the board of The Island Foundation (a charity focused on education in rural Indonesia) from 2018 to 2020, and currently sits on the advisory board for her Alma Matter, Nanyang Business School.
Amos works directly with tea farmers, driving forward our programmes in Malawi. He focuses on our Village Savings and Loans (VSLA) project – community saving schemes that support farmers’ livelihoods and improve economic resilience.
Amos has strong experience of delivering development programmes from his involvement with the Mwanza Pigeon Peas Market Development project in Malawi – an initiative by Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM), with funding from the UK government through Christian Aid. As part of the project Amos worked closely with farmer groups on several pertinent issues, including: income diversification; sustainable land management; nutrition; and climate change.
At ETP, Amos draws on his robust experience to ensure that our work in Malawi appropriately responds to tea farmers’ needs.
Anjan draws on his vast experience of working directly with tea workers in India to drive forward our Plantation Community Empowerment Programme in Assam. Our grassroots initiative empowers communities to identify and resolve the challenges they face every day.
Anjan has a thorough understanding of the impact of rural development projects in Assam, having worked for close to 20 years on community-led programmes within tea estates and with other vulnerable groups in the state. This includes government flagship projects, as well as working with international organisations such as ActionAid and Mercy Corps.
He draws on his experience of delivering programmes focused on gender equality and livelihoods, among other impact areas, to ensure that our work in Assam remains pertinent to tea workers’ needs. Tapping in to his extensive network, Anjan also works to strengthen our strategic partnerships in the region.
Ulalo (‘Bridge’): community lending & savings schemes project
Our programme’s goal is to build tea workers in Malawi’s economic resilience, and to address gender issues through economic empowerment.
We aim to reach 10,000 workers (60 percent of which would be women) by establishing 555 community lending and savings schemes. These help workers, who are largely cut off from the banking sector, have access to credit. Not only does this then cover pressing household needs, the loans and savings can also create new, entrepreneurial opportunities for workers to diversify their incomes.
We run additional training alongside implementation of the schemes, which include record-keeping, financial management, and entrepreneurship and business idea training.
The project is helping to empower women by enhancing their economic resilience – breaking down barriers to finance, building confidence and encouraging decision making.
This three-year programme started in September 2021, and is co-funded by ETP and our member Taylors of Harrogate, as well as Lujeri Tea Estates.
Drawing on his extensive experience of delivering development projects in supply chains, Peter drives forward our programmes in Kenya. Specifically, Peter has a thorough understanding of the impact of livelihood programmes in commodity value chains, having previously worked on such projects in tea, coffee and horticulture. This is complemented by his knowledge of trade policies.
Peter has strong experience in agricultural development, including gender empowerment work, and previously led programmes for international organisations such as Christian Aid and Farm Africa. He draws on his robust project management experience to ensure that our programmes in Kenya appropriately respond to tea communities’ needs.
With over 15 years’ experience in ethical trade, spanning brands, suppliers and consultancies, Irene has a thorough understanding of supply chains. This is complemented by her knowledge of Chinese labour laws and industry standards.
Drawing on her extensive experience of delivering training and projects, Irene drives forward our work on the ground in China and focuses on equality for women and young people in tea.
Women Win
In Kenya, we’re working with non-profit organisation Women Win. This is part of a broader ‘Building Bridges for Women’s Economic Empowerment’ initiative – a five-year programme implemented by Win-Win Strategies, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands.
Through this partnership, we aim to address issues faced by female tea workers with innovative solutions. We’re working with local women’s rights organisations to identify the most pressing issues women face. We are determining the most appropriate ways to address these through collaborations between the women’s rights organisations and tea factories. Strategies to support women into leadership positions will also be developed.
We’re collaborating with three local organisations: Women’s Empowerment Link; The Centre for Rights Education and Awareness; and The Community Initiative for Change and Development. As part of this project, these organisations’ capacity will be strengthened via a corporate engagement course.
Improving safety and opportunities for female workers
Around 300,000 workers are hired by small-scale farmers in Kenya. Most of these workers are women, and the majority live in poverty. We work directly with workers to improve their opportunities and safety, and particularly focus on supporting vulnerable women.
Together with national farmer organisation the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), we are strengthening gender committees and reporting structures in tea communities. We helped establish these committees at all KTDA’s factories – recognising their value in giving workers a seat at the table to voice their issues to management. ETP continues to provide training across the community on gender issues (including prevention of Gender-Based Violence) and to highlight available reporting structures.
We’re also building workers’ economic resilience by developing community lending and savings schemes. These give workers much needed access to credit for pressing household needs. We help workers to best use this opportunity to invest in new, entrepreneurial ways to add to their incomes. We also support them to better manage their own household finances.
Cecilia works directly with tea workers in Malawi as part of our Ulalo programme. She focuses on our Village Savings and Loans (VSLA) project – a community saving scheme that supports livelihoods and improves economic resilience.
With a Bachelors Degree in Agricultural Enterprise Development and Microfinance, Cecilia’s theoretical knowledge is supported by her practical experience of working on VSLA projects with local development agency the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi. Cecilia has experience of mentoring women to develop their business acumen, and is well versed in the VSLA methodology.
David Meek is an experienced, innovative and growth orientated board chair and non-executive director with a proven track record of leadership and strategic execution across multiple global and regional businesses and charity organisations.
Having chosen a career in global finance more than 30 years ago, David successfully expanded into other areas of interest including technology, real estate, conservation and sustainability, bringing a unique range of expertise. David has operated at the highest level across the UK, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the US and the Middle East, embracing cultural differences to strengthen organisations for the benefit of stakeholders and wider society.
David is Chair of the regulated financial services company, Equiti Capital, and a non executive director of sustainable real estate developer, This Land, where he also chairs the Investment Committee. In the third sector he is Chair of Getting on Board, a trustee of the British Liver trust and chair of their Audit & Risk committee, a trustee of Twycross Zoo and a mentor at Cambridge University’s Enterprise programme.
A strong believer in the importance of lifelong learning, David most recently completed his MSc in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Birkbeck, University of London. When not travelling David is based in London and also enjoys the fresh sea air on the South coast with his partner and two dogs, with interests ranging from painting to motor sport and many things in between.
By delivering our programmes to farmers on the ground, Jie has a true understanding of the issues Chinese tea farmers face. She has strong experience of training small-scale farmers in the field: Jie worked as a farmer trainer for UTZ, creating training materials during her time there. Her Masters from the Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences further complements her knowledge of the sector.
Hear from tea farmer Rodgers
Rodgers is a 43 year old tea farmer in Malawi. As well as farming, he is a volunteer trainer of small-scale tea farmers, teaching them the best farming methods of tea and nutrition.
“These participants were being trained on how they could prepare nutritious food at home. I taught them about the six food groups and gave examples of each. I was teaching them so that when they go back to their respective homes they could prepare and eat these foods in order to be healthy. As farmers with physical jobs, they need to be healthy, or it poses a threat to their income and business in general.”
The nutrition training is not just aimed at improving tea farmers diets and health, but also reaches their families.
“When parents are taught about nutrition, not only do they benefit, but their children and future generations become healthy as well.”
As well as nutrition training, farmers also receive sanitation training that outlines basic hygiene and hand-washing protocols. The COVID-19 pandemic makes this training all the more important.
“When we talk of fighting COVID-19, we need to emphasise that although we are eating all the required food groups, we need to also follow all the hygiene protocols. If we go against these measures, no matter how nutritious our diet is, we will not win the battle against COVID-19, if we do not wash our hands with soap, mask up and maintain social distance.”
Hear from tea farmer Esinala
Esinala is a 42 year old married, tea farmer in Malawi with responsibility for three children, two of whom are orphans. Through the programme, she has been taking part in training sessions that are teaching tea farmers about the best foods for a healthy diet.
Esinala has been growing a small kitchen garden of cabbages, vegetables and other crops. Before the training she did not enjoy a wide and varied diet with her family, and most of the foods they consumed were “whatever was available”.
During the training sessions Esinala learnt about the best foods to eat and now says that her and her family are consuming a diet of at least six food groups.
“I attended a nutrition workshop where we were taught about the six food groups. These are energy-giving foods, such as vegetables, oils, fruits and proteins. This has been helpful because most of the children in the village do not like eating vegetables, but the workshop taught us how to mix them in with our foods. “Before learning all this, we used to buy groceries from marketplaces. Initially, we would eat whatever was available, but after the training, we now ensure that we eat the six food groups.”
Charles works directly with tea communities in Malawi, supporting their livelihoods and improving economic resilience as part of our Ulalo programme. His focus is on supporting Village Savings and Loans (VSLAs) – a community saving scheme.
With a background in monitoring and facilitating economic and environment projects on the ground, Charles recognises the needs of Malawian tea communities. He has an excellent understanding of implementing meaningful programmes to support livelihoods.
Eston’s remit is focused on our Healthy Diets for Tea Communities programme with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. Working hand-in-hand with farmers, workers, estates and project partners, he supports project implementation – capturing robust monitoring and evaluation data.
Eston joins from a range of project implementation and monitoring roles with international institutions, including agricultural research organisation International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. He is well versed in data collection and monitoring, and experienced at working directly with farming communities.
Kuwala (‘Shine’): economic empowerment programme
Our programme aims to improve the lives and livelihoods of tea estate workers in Malawi, and to support progress towards a Living Wage in the country. Named after the Chichewa word for ‘shine’, as part of this programme we are distributing solar lights to workers. We’re ensuring the lights’ longevity by delivering training on their repair and proper use.
We’re also supporting workers to develop community lending and savings schemes. These help workers, who are largely cut off from the banking sector, have access to badly needed credit. Not only does this cover pressing household needs, the loans and savings can also be invested in different, entrepreneurial opportunities to make money.
Solar technology helping tea workers and their families
The Kuwala programme is supporting tea workers and their families to access solar light technology and to take part in community savings groups.
John has worked on a tea estate for 35 years. His work on the estate is his main source of income, and he supplements this income with farming work in his village. Access to solar technology has made a real difference to workers like John and his family.
“Before receiving this solar lamp, I used to buy batteries to light my house. It was expensive. But when I got this solar lamp, it was a relief. Now, we can just charge the solar lamp in the day, so we no longer have the expense of batteries.
“This solar lamp is helping us in many ways. When it is dark, we use it to light the house, but more importantly, the children use this solar lamp for their homework until late in the night.”
John’s children are also looking forward to the benefits of the solar lamp. His 14-year-old daughter Efelo is in Standard 5 at her school.
The solar lamp is providing light in the evenings so that she can complete her studies and succeed at her exams.
“This solar lamp has helped me because, unlike in the past, I am now able to read and study after school every night. Before the solar lamp, studying was impossible in the evenings. Now I can study whenever I want, and I am confident that I will pass the examinations.”
Community savings groups
Through the Kuwala programme, community savings groups are supporting workers to supplement their incomes. The groups help workers save money and access loans, which they use to invest in businesses or to cover household expenses.
Tea worker Bertha, 48 years old, is married with one child. Taking part in her local savings group has helped Bertha invest in her food stall business, which is providing her with an additional income. “Before joining the group, my business was literally collapsing, but I have managed to revamp it when I got the shares (from the group).”
The community savings group has also had a significant impact on her family’s life. She was able to build her house, and is looking forward to completing it with her next loan. Most importantly, she was able to use a loan when her family needed it most.
“The group has changed my family’s life. At first, we used to lack most of our household needs. The cash that I used to earn was not enough at all. For example, last December, my daughter got sick and I used the loan to pay all the hospital bills.”
As part of our Ulalo programme in Malawi, Humphrey work directly with tea communities. His focus is on our Village Savings and Loans (VSLA) project – a community saving scheme that supports livelihoods and improves economic resilience.
With a background in agribusiness, Humphrey has previously worked on community development activities in Malawi with international organisations, including the US African Development Foundation. He is well versed in training and mentoring groups and individuals in business and partnerships.
Ambition
ETP’s vision is for a thriving tea industry that is socially just and environmentally sustainable.
Impact domains and key results
Economics: Improving the economic sustainability of the industry so that everyone involved in producing tea in our supply chains has good livelihoods, workers earn a living wage and farmers earn a living income.
Environment: Achieving a carbon neutral tea sector that does not contribute to deforestation, and where estates and farmers are resilient to climate change.
Equality: Developing empowered, safe tea communities with good opportunities for women and children.
Ethical Tea Partnership is a multistakeholder platform.
Platform Foundations
Leadership; Trust; Commitment; Financial sustainability; Shared vision; Representation; Accountability and transparency; Community engagement.
Climate and economic resilience for women in tea
Working directly with female farmers in Kenya, we are building their resilience to the climatic changes that have negatively impacted tea production. As part of this programme, farmers replant moribund teas with drought-tolerant tea seedlings. This increases their yields, and so improves farmers’ incomes.
Going further, we support these farmers to develop community lending and savings schemes. As well as providing for pressing household needs, this access to credit offers a chance to invest in new, entrepreneurial opportunities to make money.
Launched in 2020, this initiative is funded by Unilever’s Enhancing Livelihoods Fund, with additional support from the Ford Foundation and with Oxfam GB’s oversight. ETP and national farmer organisation the Kenya Tea Development Agency are implementing partners.
In China, we support small-scale tea farmers with training programmes to improve their agricultural and farm management practices, resulting in the reduced use of agrochemicals and optimised profitability. Our aim is to foster a thriving smallholder tea sector with healthy farmers, earning decent livelihoods and producing good quality, safe tea.
Our €2.4 million public-private partnership with UNICEF is directly and indirectly improving the lives of an estimated 250,000 women, girls and boys living in Assam, India. Its reach spans more than a quarter of all tea estates in Assam, and it is the biggest programme of its kind there. Launched in 2014, the programme was significantly scaled up in June 2018 to build on its successes with women and girls to now include adolescent boys.
The programme works to reduce child marriage and unsafe migration, to help young people stay in education and to decrease the risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. The partnership also addresses health, child development and nutrition, water and sanitation, education and responsible business practices. The programme includes field level activities with tea communities, and works with estate management and government.
As COVID-19 spread, the programme innovatively adapted to disruptions. For example, when school closures affected planned programme activities, UNICEF successfully advocated for alternative, inventive measures to minimise the impact on children’s education. This included using take-home self-learning materials and community radio to enable continued learning.
As well as ETP, the programme is supported and funded by IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative, and ETP members OTG, Tata Consumer Products, Taylors of Harrogate, Tesco and Typhoo. As of June 2018, ETP members JDE, Starbucks Foundation and Tata Trusts also contributed to funding.
In Assam, India, we are leading a ground-breaking community empowerment programme with ETP member Taylors of Harrogate. Our initiative brings communities and estate management together to jointly resolve issues, and so improve living and working conditions.
Our grassroots programme gives tea communities a forum to voice their own concerns, alongside estate managers. Forums are made up of people from across the estate – spanning workers, young people and anyone who live or works in the estate, to management. We support these groups to create and deliver their own action plans to tackle the challenges that they themselves have identified in the communities they live in.
In Indonesia, we’re working with workers and management to improve occupational health and safety across tea factories. Following initial training in October 2019, we’ve rolled out a practical training programme and continue to support workers to develop and implement action plans to improve conditions. This work is funded by ETP.
In Kenya, many small-scale farmers hire workers to help with tea production. These workers’ rights are often overlooked, and they represent the most vulnerable group of people in the supply chain. Together with national farmer organisation the Kenya Tea Development Agency and ETP member Taylors of Harrogate, since 2020 we have run several, wide-ranging hotspot projects to support these workers.
Our financial literacy projects help to build workers’ economic resilience. We aim to support 1,780 workers to improve their budgeting, financial management and entrepreneurship skills. Together, we’re also establishing a revolving fund for workers to install fuel-efficient cookstoves and solar lights in their homes. In order to address sanitation issues, we’ve set up several projects to improve community access to water.
We recognise the need for government engagement to ensure that the impact of our projects continue in the long-term. We’re working with local county government to improve access to healthcare. Collaboratively, we have established a health centre in the community. This safe space for women includes a maternity wing and family planning services.
We have a long history of working with partners to best support tea farmers. In Malawi and Rwanda we are part of a Strategic Alliance with German development agency GIZ. Collectively, we aim to improve the economic resilience and livelihoods of 8,000 farmers across both countries.
We help farmers to earn as much as they can from their land by developing their understanding of Good Agricultural Practices. Additionally, we build their business acumen to manage their farms as profitable businesses. We also support opportunities for farmers to diversify their incomes, and increase access to credit via community lending and savings schemes.
Going further, we are looking to develop Living Wage and Living Income benchmarks in Rwanda, and exploring appropriate strategies to reach them.
This current three-year Strategic Alliance runs until summer 2022, and is funded by GIZ, Marks & Spencer and ETP members JDE, Lavazza, OTG, Tata Consumer Products Limited and Taylors of Harrogate. Learn about the impact of the previous Strategic Alliance here: https://www.ethicalteapartnership.org/improving-incomes-for-farmers/
Women of Tea
Funded by ETP member The Republic of Tea, this holistic programme improves the nutrition and health of women, men and children on tea estates in Sri Lanka. Activities span improving access to nutritious food for estate households, nutrition awareness, hygiene and sanitation practices and financial management strategies.
The programme runs until the end of 2021, and is in its final phase. Our focus now is on strengthening the estates’ community kitchens, which are operated by women from the community. The kitchens were established to provide nutritious, affordable meals to estate residents, and cook produce grown in the kitchen gardens across their estates.
In partnership with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, we’re working to address poor nutrition in tea communities through better access to, and demand for, nutritious foods. The programme aims to improve the diets of tea workers, farmers and their families in Kenya, Malawi and Assam State in India.
This three-years programme kicked off in 2020, and is co-funded by ETP together with our members Unilever, Taylors of Harrogate, the Republic of Tea, Bigelow, Reginald Ames, JDE, Wollenhaupt and Ringtons, as well as the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In response to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re supporting tea famers, workers and their families globally to adapt to – and address – this unprecedented disruption and uncertainty. To date, our work has focused on three pillars of activity: prevention, protection and provision. Going beyond our front-line response, we are also working on longer-term measures to protect vulnerable communities.
Supporting tea farmers in Malawi, Innocent works with them to improve the quality and productivity of the tea they produce and in turn improve household incomes. He has a wealth of experience in sustainable agriculture, natural resource management and economic empowerment interventions, having worked with Malawi’s Centre for Development Management and LTS International. Innocent has Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Malawi as well as a Masters in Environmental Studies obtained from the Catholic University of Malawi.
Karishma works directly with tea workers in Assam to support our life-changing projects. She holds a Masters in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Guwahati and has been working with NGOs in Assam for the past six years. Karishma has a longstanding and earnest passion to uplift tea communities through our projects.
Based in Assam, Probin works directly with tea workers in the region across our projects. With 30 years experience of working within tea estates, he has a thorough, practical understanding of tea communities and their needs.
Limbani works with smallholder tea farmers on the ground, teaching them entrepreneurial skills and supporting economic empowerment through our community saving scheme. Limbani’s work on building, developing and strengthening the skills, abilities, and resources that farmers need to adapt to industry and environmental changes is critical. Alongside his work at ETP, he is currently pursuing an MA in behaviour change at the University of Malawi.
Provision
We work to build tea farmers and workers’ economic resilience, meaning that they are better able to adapt to future shocks. We also address the heightened lack of access to basic necessities, such as food.
Sri Lankan tea plucker Mummorothy works on her family’s kitchen garden, which ETP helped her to establish
Some examples of our work include:
> Our programmes across India, Kenya, Malawi and Sri Lanka promote better nutrition and tackle food scarcity by supporting kitchen gardens. Expanding our reach, in Malawi we’ve provided more than 4,000 farmers with extra vegetable seeds to enrich their kitchen gardens. We worked in partnership with IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative and ETP member Tata Consumer Products, with funding available as part of the Malawi Tea 2020 programme.
Distributing food aid via our Community Empowerment Programme in Assam
> In Assam, India, tea estate management and local government are issuing essential provisions to tea communities. We are also distributing food aid to 700 of the most vulnerable families in two of the estates involved in our Community Empowerment Programme. We’re making sure that those most in need across the estates are aware of the support available to them. We have been closely monitoring access to the government’s Covid-19 cash benefit scheme aimed at women and have been supporting those eligible to open bank accounts.
> In Kenya, an estimated 4,000 farmers and 20,000 workers are using the 550 water tanks we’ve installed. Aside from handwashing, the water will also help irrigate their vegetable gardens.
Malawian tea farmer Efelo with the strong box that stores the savings made by her community group
> In Malawi we have been working with farmers for many years to develop and support community savings schemes. It helps farmers access credit, as well as functioning as a savings deposit. Often farmers will invest their credit in new, entrepreneurial businesses to add to their income. These groups are vital – now, more than ever. They help farmers to keep their businesses running, and allow those most in need to access crisis funds. We’ve issued PPE and implemented safety measures across all our savings groups, so that farmers can continue to tap in to this essential resource. We’re working in partnership with IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative and ETP member Tata Consumer Products, with funding available as part of the Malawi Tea 2020 programme.
> One of the ways we help farmers in Rwanda to increase their yields, incomes and savings is by working together in our Farmer Field Schools. While current guidelines mean that these groups cannot meet, our trainers are supporting farmers to continue with the good agricultural practices they’ve learnt via one-on-one, distanced visits. The visits are also an opportunity to inform farmers about the latest health and sanitation advice.
> Women involved in our Community Empowerment Programme in Assam have taken up mask-making as an additional income source. So far, 18,200 masks have been made across four estates and will be distributed to tea workers in key plucking areas.
> To minimise any disruption of education on estates in Assam, ETP staff have introduced precautionary measures in learning centres, including more frequent ‘pocket classes’ of ten students. Additional exams have been launched to monitor progress and extra-curricular activities have also been encouraged. Young people have also been able to access online career counselling sessions.
Protection
Not only does protective equipment limit the spread of the virus, it is critical in enabling tea farmers and workers to continue making a living from tea.
Some examples of our work include:
> In Assam, India we’ve organised hand washing demonstrations in line with national guidelines, across the tea estates and factories involved in our Community Empowerment Programme.
Tea pluckers in Assam, India wearing face masks distributed by our Community Empowerment Programme
> Over 35,000 masks have been issued to workers by tea estate management in Assam. Members of our Community Empowerment Programme have supported this by hand making some face masks to give to workers on their estates.
> As part of our pilot project in Sri Lanka, so far we’ve supplied 550 face shields to tea leaf collectors, meaning that more than 30,000 farmers can safely continue to sell the tea they grow.
ETP Programme Manager Jane Nyambura donates reusable protective masks to Kenyan smallholder farmers
> In Kenya, we distributed a total of 112,500 reusable face masks for workers and smallholder farmers through our work with local partners.
> Our community savings schemes with IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative in Kenya help farmers and workers of farmers to save money, and learn new, entrepreneurial skills like soap making – which is particularly critical at this time. Group members and their families now have better to access to soap. Some worker groups have also gone on to sell 1,200 excess soap bars and 990 litres of liquid soap to tea factories.
> To enable our programmes to operate in Malawi, we’ve issued PPE for 40 lead trainer farmers and five ETP field team members meaning farmers can continue to be trained.
> We’ve distributed hand washing equipment for 800 farming families in Malawi.
> For both these initiatives in Malawi, we worked in partnership with IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative and ETP member Tata Consumer Products, with funding available as part of the Malawi Tea 2020 programme.
> In Rwanda, we’ve supplied 42,000 face masks for farmers and workers so far. Not only does this limit the virus’ spread, it also means they can adhere to local authorities’ guidelines and safely continue to make their living from tea.
> Across Rwanda, we’ve distributed soap to the 356 tea buying centres that needed it, meaning that all the country’s farmers can wash their hands.
ETP team member Charles Kambale issues Protective Personal Equipment (PPE) to a health centre in Malawi
Our work also supports wider community needs, responding to a lack of government funding. Examples include:
> In Malawi, we’ve distributed PPE, hand washing and cleaning equipment to seven health centres, which serve up to 170,000 people in tea growing areas. This includes surgical gloves, aprons, goggles and face masks. The health centres are now also stocked with infrared thermometers, disinfectant and paracetamol.
> In Assam, India, we’ve provided PPE to three estate hospitals, as well as dispensing sanitation items to the communities they serve.
Prevention
By raising awareness in tea communities, we can help prevent the virus from spreading.
In Malawi, our work informs tea communities how best to protect themselves and others
Some examples of our work include:
> In Malawi, our radio broadcasts are running for three weeks to alert tea communities to the latest government advice. Many families, particularly in rural areas, rely on radio news broadcasts. We’ve also shared guidance via strategically placed posters – such as in health centres. We worked in partnership with IDH – Sustainable Trade Initiative and ETP member Tata Consumer Products, with funding available as part of the Malawi Tea 2020 programme.
> Our posters and banners in health centres, schools and tea buying centres across all of Rwanda’s tea communities share the latest hygiene and sanitation guidance.
> In Assam, India, our Community Empowerment Programme brings together the estate community, management and the District health department. We’re working closely with doctors from the Assam state health service, the National Health Mission, to alert tea workers and their families to the latest guidance and safety protocols. We’ve set up awareness camps and distributed pamphlets across the estates, sharing details of COVID-19 causes, symptoms and preventive measures.
> For those returning to work on the estates in Assam, we’ve organised training to share the latest health and safety protocols– including advice on social distancing. The training has been a success, with measures being followed and young people raising awareness among their peers in accordance with government guidelines.
> By facilitating a webinar series with the Colombo Tea Trade Association Roadmap 2030 Committee in Sri Lanka, we’ve created an effective platform for the sector to discuss ways to best protect communities during the pandemic.
> In Kenya, our radio broadcasts were picked up by 1,055,000 devices, with the number of listeners expected to be far greater. This has informed rural communities on how to reduce the spread of the virus and stay safe during the pandemic and helped to combat the spread of any false information about the virus.
Working closely on the ground with tea communities in Assam, Kamini has a well-developed understanding of their needs. Graduating with an MA from Tezpur Central University and beginning his career in the development sector in 2009, Kamini brings a broad range of expertise to ETP. He has worked with both international agencies and state-level platforms on projects relating to farmers’ livelihoods, children’s education and rights and Disaster Risk Reduction.
As Project Officer, Gaurav works directly with tea communities in Assam to deliver our projects. Having obtained a Masters in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Science (where he focused his research on the socio-economic status of plantation communities), Gaurav has a sound understanding of how to assess programme impact within the tea sector.
As Programme Manager, Nirbhay works directly with tea communities in India, providing on the ground support and managing the delivery of our life-changing projects in Assam. Having worked in the tea industry across multiple regions for over 30 years, Nirbhay brings invaluable insight and knowledge of the tea sector to the role. Thanks to his extensive experience in the industry, he has a comprehensive understanding of tea communities and their needs.
Appointed in 2011, Ian has extensive experience of the consumer products industry and development of sustainable supply chains. Having held several senior supply chain roles at Unilever, his 30-year executive career there culminated in his appointment as the company’s first Chief Supply Chain Officer. Ian Chaired the Unilever Sustainable Agriculture Board, and led transformational aspects of the company’s corporate social responsibility programme. Drawing on this experience, Ian ensures our work is pertinent to the challenges faced by the communities within tea supply chains around the world.
Wanja is responsible for developing high-level, strategic relationships with businesses, governments and development partners in Africa to enable us to go further, faster in tea-growing regions. She has hands-on experience of the tea sector, having founded her own speciality tea business. Wanja also worked closely with farmers during her time as a Trade and Investment Diplomat in the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and was part of the tea farming community in Central Kenya. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Wanja also travels to Malawi and Rwanda to support these regions. Her role is key to driving forward the longer-term sustainability of tea across Africa.
Hear from Nabanita
Nabanita is 25 years old and now a facilitator for her Girls Group. She wants to see young people think beyond life in their tea community.
Nabanita was a tomboy growing up and won awards for being a good all-round student. When Ritamoni, a Unicef coordinator, set up the Girls Group on her estate, she realised her potential and that it wasn’t limited to the community: “she allowed us to hope for opportunities”.
The opportunities offered through the Group, such as football and creative arts workshops, were life-changing for Nabanita as they showcased how her talents could be harnessed. They saw her progress to playing sport at the district level and winning awards, “the exposure I have had to all these different platforms has been fantastic”.
Inspired by Ritamoni, Nabanita thought about becoming a social worker too and is now facilitating her Girls Group, “the most important thing for me is to instill good thoughts, to get them to think positively and change their outlook on their lives”.
Some people living in tea communities can struggle to see beyond life in the community. Nabanita wants the girls in her group to show their talents and participate in wider society: “I want to give the girls the opportunity to think that there is a wider world outside”.
Child marriage has reduced and school attendance increased since the Girls Groups have been introduced. One girl in Nabanita’s group stopped going to school, so Nabanita encouraged conversations about how fun school was, especially sports, “that girl really likes sports so we kind of enticed her with the idea that school is really fun, you should go!” She had a chance to think about it and when she went back home, told her parents she’d like to re-enroll and went back to school.
The younger the girls are when they join the group, the more positive impact the groups can have: “if we can start giving them those positive feelings and that positive reinforcement from an early age, they will grow up with those feelings and be so much more capable of accessing and using this platform really well”.
Hear from Bhagyawati
Bhagyawati is 19 years old. She has taken part in the ETP-UNICEF Improving Lives programme and through her involvement in her local adolescent girls’ group has learnt about the importance of nutritious diet to improve her health.
She explains that “before joining the group, I had no idea of what a proper nutritious diet was. I would eat anything that came my way. After joining the group, I learned about the benefits of locally grown vegetables and developed a taste for them!”.
“Since I was growing these vegetables fresh in my own garden, this gave me confidence and improved my health. I used to face problems with anaemia – (I was) fatigued, didn’t feel like working and always felt sleepy the whole day. After my diet changed, these small steps have led to big improvements. I have much more energy”.
Bhagyawati has also been an inspiration for her friends in her community and her friend Sangeeta has not only been inspired to set up her own kitchen garden to grow fresh vegetables but has been big plans for her future. “I would like to be a chef, like Sanjeev Kapoor. I just love cooking!”.
Hear from Beno, Malawi
Beno Winesi is a smallholder tea farmer and father to six children. He has purchased two solar lamps through a credit scheme funded by the Ethical Tea Partnership.
“This lamp is very good. I don’t need to buy batteries anymore. Once it is charged, it lasts for five days. The air is so nice and clean now. None of us are coughing any more. And it’s so bright!
I have two, a small one just for light and a big one that has a radio and a USB charger so I can charge my phone.
I listen to the news on the radio. I love the news. I get news from Malawi and nearby countries like Mozambique. My wife and I listen to music on the radio and we dance together.
I also listen to football matches. My favourite team is Nassau Big Bullets. They are very popular in Malawi. My favourite international team is Manchester United”.
Hear from Martha, Malawi
Martha Khembo is an extension worker, liaising between the Lujeri Tea Estate and smallholder farmers represented by the Sukambizi Association Trust, one of four trusts in Malawi that represent smallholder farmers.
“My job is to connect smallholder farmers to the estate, to provide them with extension services such as credit and access to GAP (good agricultural practice) training.
We have been providing solar lamps for about two years. Now at night you will see almost every house has a light on. Two years ago the place would look dark. Some families were using firewood to light a small area of the house or using paraffin lamps, but these don’t have a very wide range.
The best thing about these lamps is what they do for kids. They can do their homework at night which means they can play when they come home from school. Play is an important part of a child’s development and now they know their homework can wait until it is dark.
Cooking outside is hard when it is raining. Now families can cook inside with this light.
What I’d love to see for this community is more green and less deforestation. I want to see a solar light in every house. I’d like to see healthier people and better houses”.
Hear from Jones, Malawi
“I am councillor for this ward. I encourage people to work hard in this area. This is a tea-growing area. I’m encouraging people to grow more tea.
I understand the importance of trees in tea. They provide shade and they help mitigate against climate change. Deforestation has affected this community. Heavy rains are associated with high winds which blow roofs off houses. The rivers dry up. This didn’t happen before.
Slowly but surely we will increase the production of seedlings along the riverbanks and on the mountains. Next time you come you will not see bare mountains.
I grew up in this area. There was a thick forest which has gone now. The rivers had water all year round. We used to have rains even in June but those rains have completely gone.
As a leader in this community, the mere fact that I come here to encourage them supports the initiative”.
Hear from Veronica, Malawi
Veronica, has been part of her farmer field school group in Malawi and taken part in cookstove production. Through the group Veronica makes and sells cookstoves that help her earn an additional income.
She has earned 37, 000 Kwacha in four months from the cookstove production, which helps her pay her children’s school fees. She’s hoping that the additional income will mean that her daughter, who has graduated from secondary school, will be able to go on to further education.
Veronica has a small tea farm and her husband works on a tea estate, but this income wasn’t fully able to meet her family’s needs. She explained that “when my children didn’t have school books or school uniform, I felt sad whenever they asked for something and I couldn’t give it to them. Now I can help my husband to provide all these things”.
She is now also using less fuelwood as the cookstove has reduced the amount of wood Veronica needs to cook. She says that the wood she would have previously used over a month now lasts many more months.
Hear from Gervais, Rwanda
42-year-old tea farmer, Gervais, is married with seven children. By being part of one of ETP’s community savings group, he’s been able to achieve his long-term ambition of owning a dairy cow. He had managed to save 150,000 RWF and was able to borrow 100,000 RWF from the VSLA group. This topped up his savings, meaning he could buy his dream cow.
Gervais has been successful with his cow business. The cow produces eight litres a day, five of which sells for 800 RFW a day. So far, he has been able to make around 220,000 RWF (£190). The rest of the milk is used at home, improving his family’s diets.
The cow gave birth to a female calf five months ago, and he plans to sell her next August for 250,000 RWF (£216). With the money, Gervais plans to renovate his house and bring electricity to his home. Gervais is one of more than two thousand farmers in Rwanda who ETP supported to have better incomes.
Hear from Thebronia, Malawi
Thebronia, a tea farmer in Malawi, has become the secretary of her local tea nursery. She hopes to be able to make a profit from the tea she grows in the nursery.
She explains, “Our main cash crop is tea and our children depend on it. Because of climate change, the rains are not falling at they used to. We were depending on pineapple as an extra cash crop but that is failing. So we are really dependent on tea. There is hidden treasure in tea”.
As well as planting tea crops, her nursery group are also planting crops like sweet potato which help to protect the soil and are an important nutritious food.
Thebronia has high hopes for the project and hopes that the nursery will continue to grow and help her to support her children and grandchildren. She is ever more reliant on improving her tea growing in order to better her financial circumstances and hopes to use the skills she has learnt through the FFS group to open her own nursery and further increase her production (with tea clones resistant to the impacts of climate change).
Mavuto works directly with tea farmers in Malawi, supporting them with our lending and saving scheme as well as environmental efforts. A Natural Resources Management graduate from the University of Malawi, he oversaw projects while at the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi and worked on a community energy development project at The Malawi Polytechnic before joining ETP.
Diya works directly with tea communities in India to support our life-changing projects. She initially joined ETP while gaining her Masters in Anthropology of Food at SOAS, University of London. She’s also worked with London-based organic food collective Riverford and India-based NGO Navdanya, focusing on biodiversity and farmers’ rights.
Hear from Veronica
Veronica has been a member of one of ETP’s cookstove production groups for a year. She really appreciates that the cookstoves use less fuelwood as she now has “more free time that I can spend with family and friends” rather than collecting wood.
Being part of the cookstove group has been life-changing for the tea farmer and her five children. Veronica says, “before the cook stoves production, I didn’t have enough income to support the family. The programme has helped because now I can contribute to school fees. Once they have finished secondary school, I would like them to go on to college”.
Veronica also took part in Farmer Field School training, run by ETP, where she “learnt about good agricultural practices and environmental management”. Since being able to apply what she learnt, Veronica’s “yield has really increased as a result” – increasing her income.
Reflecting on her situation, Veronica says “with all these initiatives, my family life is better”.
Hear from Angela
Keen to add to her income, tea farmer Angela joined ETP’s cookstove programme where she makes and sells stoves. She invests the extra money she makes in to a community savings scheme.
She says, “I can see that my life is changing for the better. Now that I am able to do things independently because of this new income, other women in the community look to me as an example, they want to learn from me. Even my husband gives me the respect I deserve, much more respect than a wife traditionally gets”.
A graduate from ETP’s agricultural training programme, Farmer Field School, Angela is “getting a much better yield. I have more money now. I am no longer struggling to send my children to school”. Her other priority is “that the food I buy is balanced in the ways I learnt in Farmer Field School. The extra money allows me to do this”.
Hear from Asuwema
What first attracted tea farmer Asuwema to the beekeeping club was “how well the women were doing. They’ve got extra money and have TVs and bikes”. A single mother of one, she is keen to be self-sufficient: “besides the money, the women in the group encourage each other and give each other advice… they can help me with life in general”.
She says that “women are not respected here as much as men. Single mothers have a tough time as they are not respected. When I have money and I am self-reliant, for sure I will be respected”.
Asuwema puts some of the extra money she makes from the beekeeping group in to a community savings scheme, set up by ETP. She wants to use the savings to help her mother invest in building work as “her house isn’t good, and I’m worried about how it will cope when the rains come”.
Hear from Walter
Tea farmer Walter is a member of one ETP’s tree nursery groups in Malawi. He’s aware that “most of the indigenous forest has gone” and has so far planted 200 trees himself. He will “sell about 150 and keep the stump and roots” so that they sprout again.
Walter uses the extra income he makes from his trees to support him and his family. He can “sell a full-grown tree for firewood” and “a younger tree for poles for construction”. As well as spending the extra money he makes on essential like food, Walter also invests in school fees for his six children and seven grandchildren.
Hear from Esnart
Grandmother Esnart is part of her local tree nursery group, planting trees to combat deforestation. The tea farmer witnessed first-hand the changes to the landscape, and she notes “when I was a child, the mountains were so beautiful. There was a blanket of forest, so thick that if you went up with another person, you couldn’t see each other. It was full of wild animals, but they have all gone now”.
It’s not just her generation that’s seen the effects of deforestation. He grandson Matthew is 22, and is all too aware of the impact of these changes: “there were some trees on the mountain when I was a child, though I was told then that it was nothing like it used to be. But now even they have gone. I can only imagine wild animals on the mountains from stories my grandmother has told me.”
Matthew knows that now is the time for action: “I fear it will be very bad when I have children. They will be very angry with our generation for allowing this to happen. But I hope it won’t come to that and we will choose to reforest the mountain instead.”
Hear from Patricia
Tea farmer Patricia notes that having a solar lamp “only brings joy and happiness” to her and her family. She used to worry when using paraffin lamps in the home as “they are a great danger. Children can forget it is on and fall asleep. They can also lead to chest infections”.
Having a solar light means Patricia’s four children can all read by it at night. This has been transformational for her family, and Patricia’s “seen a great improvement in their schoolwork”. One of her sons is reaping the benefits of the extra study time. He went from being “number 20 in the class for results, but since we’ve had the lamp, he’s moved up to number three”.
Hear from Ramaya
Ramaya grows organic vegetables in his family’s kitchen garden. He says that as it is “very healthy they prefer it. I knew about the importance of nutritious food before but not to this extent”.
Hear from Devadasan
Tea worker Devadasan has been taking part in the ‘out grower’ model and with the extra income from his plot of land has been able to send his son to university.
He says, “I use the money from our plot for my son’s university education. He is studying an arts degree. He wants to become a teacher and I think he might come to work in our area. I hope that some of my daughters will go to university too. I’d like my daughters to become engineers and lawyers”.
Hear from Selvamerry
Selvamerry is a tea worker, she has been taking part in the ‘out grower’ model. She says that she is now hoping to use the extra income to save for her children’s education:
“I will use the extra money for my kids’ education. When I had some spare recently, I bought gold jewellery. We have a tradition here of ‘saving’ money in jewellery. If we put it in the bank, we might treat it like cash and spend it quickly. But if we buy jewellery, we will definitely think twice before selling it”.
Hear from Patricia
The backbone of ETP’s business and entrepreneurship training in Rwanda is Patricia. An inspiring lady, she is the first woman to become a Master Trainer. A Malawian, she travelled to Rwanda specially to ensure the success of the project when it launched and is confident about its future:
“We are going to have a big impact in Rwanda… we will help farmers in terms of the record keeping, planning, knowing the size of their land enhancing their entrepreneurial skills, and better farm management, which will lead to improved incomes”.
Having a woman as a trainer and role model for business has had a remarkable impression on the females being trained. Patricia notes that “most women open up when they are talking with fellow women… because when they see a fellow woman doing it, they believe that they, too, can do it”.
Hear from Speciose
Tea farmer Speciose leads one of ETP’s Farmer Field Schools in Rwanda, where nearly half the members are women. The group learnt how to grow mushrooms through the programme, and Speciose says “this will be a very good income-generating activity for us”. The extra money can be saved in one of ETP’s lending and savings schemes, which she also heads.
Aside from the financial benefits, Speciose says “we appreciate this because mushrooms are rich in nutrients and minerals and will contribute to the good health of our families”.
Hear from Emily
Taking part in ETP’s Farmer Field School has transformed not just tea farmer Emily’s life, but also her five children’s too. Thanks to the training, she’s seen a big increase in her income and “tea cultivation is giving me enough money now to send them all to school”.
Enterprising tea farmer Emily not only grows tea, but also runs a shop. She notes that “the school taught me business skills. I wanted to start a business already, but I didn’t know where to begin”.
Inspired by ETP’s training, she says “my next venture will be to supply spare parts for motorbikes. It is my dream to set that up. With that, I’ll have more money to support my children through education”.
Hear from Yogesh
Yogesh is Joint Secretary of a CDF and lives on a tea estate with his wife, a plucker, and their child. Around half of the residents in the community don’t have any form of identification.
Yogesh is passionate about helping his community secure the documentation that they need. He says, “a lot of people don’t have any identity documentation and without these documents it is very difficult for people to do the things they need to do to make their lives better”.
Noting the pivotal role documentation plays, Yogesh details “for example, it is mandatory now to have a bank account. But without a bank card, you can’t open a bank account. Without a birth certificate, we can’t enrol our children in a school outside the tea estate. There are government quotas for people from certain casts for government jobs. But without the caste certificate you are not eligible for those quotas”.
Yogesh’s collection of identification documents Credit: Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos
Yogesh sees an opportunity for the CDFs to streamline the issuing of identification documents for tea communities. A complicated bureaucracy means that currently people have to travel to lots of different government offices to get the relevant papers, costing time and money. The CDFs can make life easier for residents by being the link between the community and the government.
Yogesh is keen to “explain to people the importance of this as not everyone understands the benefits”. Hopeful about the future, he says “through the CDFs we can work together… we can all rise. Not only the community but the whole industry”.
Hear from Amrit
As Secretary of the estate’s CDF Amrit is proud to be part of “a proper process for activities that will help us”. For him, the initiative plays an invaluable role in “improving developments on the estate” for the whole community’s benefit.
The CDF has “done some problem prioritisation to talk about the most important issues for all the community”. They identified youth unemployment as a major concern to address.
Amrit notes that “we have a lot of young people living one the tea estate who are educated but haven’t been able to find jobs. The garden isn’t able to employ everybody”. Keen to find a solution, the CDF “facilitates vocational skills training so that they can be employed elsewhere, for example in hotel management and other trades”.
Hear from Deepjyoti
A member of his local CDF, Deepjiyoti is involved in creating an action plan for improvements to the tea estate. He notes that “there are a lot of problems with alcohol on the estate. While some women do drink, it is mostly men and often it is men who work for cash wages off the estate. They have money in their hand, and they spend it on drink”.
He points out alcohol is a “big source of conflict. Sometimes men who are drinking can’t hold down a job and are beating their wives and taking their wages to spend on drink. If the wife refuses to give him her wages, then they might sell household items to spend on liquor”.
This can also have a detrimental effect on children in the home, and disrupt their studies. As Deepjiyoti says, “it’s not just about the alcoholic, it’s about the impact on the people around them”.
Via the CDF, Deepjiyoti is working to address alcoholism on the estate. This includes awareness-raising by going “house to house discouraging people from drinking and also from brewing alcohol in their homes”. Recognising the value of the CDFs, Deepjiyoti notes that “by representing everyone on the estate it gives us a bit more leverage that we can use to solve the problem”.
Though a Political Science graduate, Deepjyoti is currently unemployed. Deepjyoti sees lots of potential for the CDF to also help estate residents to access skills training that will increase their employability.
He says, “There are a lot of educated young people on the estate, but they are still not qualified for certain positions. There are loads of skills development programmes that the government runs. If we can identify what the programmes are and help people access them, then they can also look for jobs inside or outside the tea estate. Personally, I would like to do hotel management training”.
Hear from Asha
Asha is a tea plucker and founding member of the CDF on her estate.
She says, “the management and my community nominated me to represent them. I can’t read and write but I understand the context very well, and I can come back and talk to the people in my community in their own language”.
Asha recognises the value of the CDF, noting “it brings everyone together – student union, trade union – to find solutions for the benefit of the estate and make a complete action plan”.
She points out that the CDF structure means that they can help tackle the root causes of some of the issues people face on the estates: “everything is linked. Getting our ID documents has a snowball effect on everything else. Not having a bank card means you can’t open a bank account. Not having a bank account means you can’t save money”.
Hear from Annie
Annie learnt how to cook nutritious recipes as part of her Farmer Field School training. It’s had a far-reaching impact on tea farmer Annie and her family. She’s noticed that her “children are so much healthier now – they can concentrate better”. Not only that, Annie’s found that both her and her husband “feel stronger when we are working in the tea field”.
Taking part in Farmer Field School programme has also meant that the family have been able to make more money from the tea they grow. They invest this in a community savings scheme.
Keen to find innovative ways to earn more, they use the extra income to run a small, profitable shop from their house.
Hear from Edna
The biggest fans of Edna’s newly developed cooking skills are her two sons. They can’t get enough of the nourishing sweet potato fritters she’s learnt to make, and Edna’s noticed a real improvement in their health since introducing a more balanced diet. She says,
“I can really see the change in my youngest child. He used to get sick a lot and now he doesn’t”.
Edna has taken part in the Farmer Field School programme and so now grows a variety of crops. She invests her increased income in the community savings scheme.
She says: “I plan to save towards my children’s education. The money will accumulate, and it should be enough for their secondary education. I am hopeful that they will get well-paid jobs. One wants to be a driver and the other wants to be a pilot”.
Hear from Victoria
Entrepreneurial tea farmer Victoria runs a hair salon. She is proud that her “business is very profitable. I supply treatments and hair pieces and I go home every day smiling”.
Being part of a community savings scheme has given Victoria the opportunity to access funds to grow her salon:
“Now I can do every type of style a customer wants. Eventually, I want my salon to expand so I can have many customers at once”.
A mother of two, Victoria’s increased income has meant she can now pay for both her children to go school. She notes “when we don’t have financial security, life is hard. But in my case, I am respected, and I am able to support others who are struggling so I have influence”.
Hear from Patrick
Patrick is a painter on a tea estate in Malawi, he says that “when I started work I had no qualifications, but I have put in the work and now I have been promoted”.
Patrick invests some of his salary in to a community savings scheme, set up by ETP. He appreciates that “we can save a little now to fulfil our dreams in the future”. Patrick uses the money he saves to change his family’s lives for the better. He says,
“I want to improve my family’s standard of living. I’d like to be able to provide them with more food and more variety”.
Patrick has three daughters and a son and can use his savings to pay their school fees. He says, “I want my children to be educated so that they can be independent. I want them to be able to stand on their own two feet”.
Hear from Rhoda
Rhoda is a member of a community savings scheme and has been saving to build her house. She says:
“I started building this house in 2014. I joined the scheme in 2016. I used a loan to buy 60 bags of cement to finish off my house. I grew up in a small house with a grass thatched roof, so I am very proud of this house”.
She has also been able to use her savings to purchase a fridge, which she is using to run her own drinks business. With the extra income from selling drinks she plans to purchase more resources to set up future ventures.
We support tea communities, and run community savings schemes with workers in the tea industry. Currently more than 2,000 workers are part of this initiative, and most of these are women. The extra money is used for basic needs such as housing, medical care and education as well as being invested in entrepreneurial opportunities.
Hear from Loveness
Malawian tea farmer Loveness never managed to complete school. She has three young children and attends a Farmer Field School. She’s seen a big increase in income thanks to the training, and the amount she makes a month has nearly doubled.
This has been life-changing for Loveness, who says, “I adopted my niece when my sister died. I could afford to do this because of the extra money I am earning since Farmer Field School”. She can now pay for all her daughters to go to school and wants her girls to be “the first in my family to finish secondary school”.
Sarah oversees the running and strategic direction of ETP, ensuring that our work continues to create a fairer, better and more sustainable tea industry and leads to measurable improvements in people’s lives. With a background in development, strategic sustainability and corporate responsibility, she has worked on programmes across the world for the International Institute for Environment and Development. Sarah has also helped companies in very different industries improve their social and environmental impacts at a number of not for profit and large-scale consultancy firms.
Ishan oversees all our work in Sri Lanka. He brings a wealth of experience from his roles at Unilever and Dilmah. As well as extensive supply chain and procurement experience, Ishan was also responsible for a range of sustainability programmes.
Working on the ground with Rwandan tea workers and farmers, Janvier has a full understanding of the tea communities in this African country. He’s particularly well-versed in sustainability, having joined ETP from Vi Agroforestry – a Swedish development cooperation which promotes climate change awareness among farming communities.
Wagurah has long standing experience in improving sustainability in Africa. A graduate from Egerton University in Kenya and an expert trainer, he came to ETP having managed Corporate Social Responsibility at a major Kenyan exporter of fresh flowers. Bringing his sustainability experience to the tea sector, Wagurah continues to drive improvements in social and environmental practices in tea communities across Africa.
Nelia leads our activity in Indonesia, ensuring that ETP’s work is truly supporting tea workers and farmers as well as addressing environmental issues in tea communities. Nelia has extensive experience of the development sector in this Asian country, having worked at Plan International, Indonesia and managed projects with UNHCR and the US Department of Agriculture.
Vikram has an in-depth understanding of the tea industry, having worked around the globe for large tea plantation companies, including in North and South India, Malawi and other African countries. He began his career as a Management trainee at Harrisons Malayalam Ltd, one of the world’s largest plantation companies. Vikram’s executive career in the sector also includes time at major global tea producer Goodricke, where he spent nearly a decade. Vikram’s global experience and strategic approach ensures that our work in India truly improves the lives of tea communities.
Jame works directly with Chinese tea farmers to understand the challenges they face, and how best we can work to address these. He has a professional, working knowledge of tea processing and cultivation having obtained a Masters from the Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and also majoring in Tea Science during his undergraduate degree at Hunan Agricultural University.
Leading our team in China, John works directly with tea communities to ensure ETP’s programmes have real impact in the country. Prior to joining, he worked as Ethical Compliance Manager at Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer’s and Walmart and measured the performance of over 1,000 factories against the Ethical Trading Initiative base code. He draws upon his strong experience and qualifications in sustainable supply chains to ensure that our work in China is pertinent to the tea sector there.
Hear from Sangeeta
Sangeeta is 19, and her favourite subject is maths. As part of the Girls Group, Sangeeta’s passion for her own studies has been matched by her encouraging girls to stay in education. She’s worked on a range of scenarios, which have included preventing girls from eloping to escape domestic violence and encouraging young women to stay in school as well as convincing their parents to support that decision. Sangeeta has also stood in as the community mobiliser on occasion.
Working with the Child Protection Committees and Welfare Officers, Sangeeta has been able to visit the homes and families of vulnerable children to talk about the challenges those girls face.
She says, “we go house to house to inform parents that they shouldn’t marry their girls before 18 and their boys before 21 and this is illegal in Indian law”. Yet Sangeeta has seen some girls eloping at a young age with their boyfriends, resulting in teenage pregnancies. She says, “in most cases girls elope because there is domestic violence at home. To outsiders, it is just a young girl running away with a boy. But the reality is that at home there is alcohol and violence. Most of these marriages are an escape from that violence. The sad thing is they escape from one violent situation and end up in another”.
But with the support of the Girls Groups Sangeeta explores the challenges facing these young women and provides them with the support they need to pursue other options, such as staying on at school. By visiting their homes and families, Sangeeta is also ensuring that the girls’ families support them and encourages a whole new way of thinking about these adolescent girls’ futures on the tea estates.
She says, “we go to their house to tell them what we do in the group, how good it has been for us and if they allow their daughters to participate, it will only help her. That is how we negotiate”.
Distributing food aid via our Community Empowerment Programme in Assam
Rhoda is a member of a community savings scheme and has been saving to build her house. She says:
