Community coffee

concept design

Augsburg has had a permanent presence in Nicaragua since 1984. Augsburg’s presence was based around hosting educational trips regarding the general public to raise awareness about US policy toward Central America at the time, and often visited cooperatives in the area. This allowed Augsburg to develop relationships with organizations throughout the country, of which many were cooperatives.

Winds of Peace Foundation is one of the many organizations that have funded the Cooperative Movement in Nicaragua. What sets them apart is the focus placed on the ownership model of the cooperative, which is collectively owned, which stems from their history of being a worker-owned factory. These cooperatives are not just a business, but they are collectively owned and are meant to facilitate collective action for the common good. Cooperatives with collective ownership operate under the focus of profit + collective social impact. All profits go to every member in the cooperative.

Nicaragua alone has over 3,500 cooperatives but Nicaragua still follows the old hacienda model where it was hard for a field worker to get promoted to a patron, someone who was in power of the cooperative. This created a lot of uprisings and possibilities of civil war.