Little NGO shop serves ‘just’ brewed coffee

By Jeffrey M. Tupas
Mindanao Bureau


Posted date: February 23, 2008

ONE CAN BARELY NOTICE the small structure a few meters from the Philippine Women’s College in Davao City, even during school breaks when the road is clear of the usual rush of students amid cars and motorcycles.

But for the observant and the curious, the coffee shop in Juna Subdivision is a sure magnet although it holds fewer than a dozen young patrons.

Coffee for Peace, painted in a dull yellow-and-forest green combo, looks like a bored bookstore unvisited for years and does not even speak of the great brew it offers to a growing clientele.

People behind the counter, however, are always ready to take customers to a tour of stories—inspiring and moving—about the lives of farmers from where they source their coffee, their own experience in taking care of the environment, and their take in building and fostering peace in areas once ravaged by armed conflict.

That, according to Krizanti Cruzado, research and development officer of the Peacebuilders Community, was the reason the café got its name.

Fund-raising roots

Opened in May last year, Coffee for Peace evolved from a fund-raising effort of the Peacebuilders Community, a nongovernment organization working for peace and reconciliation in conflict areas in Mindanao.

“We are doing a lot of things so the question was: How will we be able to sustain them? If we remain to be funding-based, there will certainly be difficulty in doing our tasks and delivering to the communities that need our help. We wanted to be self-reliant so we thought of putting up a coffee shop,” Cruzado says.

Why? Because “there is coffee in Mindanao and a lot of people are lovers of coffee … somehow, it is one of the few things that is common among the rich and the poor.”

The shop draws its supply of coffee from the B’laan of Mt. Matutum in South Cotabato.

Free trade

“We give justice to the people where we source out our coffee from. We follow fair trade. We brew coffee that is not just coffee … our coffee here is a just coffee. This we do while we continue doing our advocacy work,” Cruzado says.

The Peacebuilders Community buys premium Arabica at five times higher than the gate price of at least P25 per kilogram. It wants to pass on this kind of attitude to others who want to engage in the business as its partners, Cruzado says.

Her group also engages the community into becoming better financial and environmental managers.

“We are changing our hats. Everything that we are doing is so integrated with each other, and with others. We are doing peace and we are doing business in harmony with nature,” the NGO leader says.

Unique taste

She says her group is banking on the unique taste of its products. “There is no compromise as we give it all the way.”

The menu is riddled by the word “peace” attached to the food and drinks—peace tuna melt, peace butter toast, peace cheese melt, peace peanut butter toast, peace fruit juice, peace fruit shake, hot coffee for peace, iced coffee for peace, and misty peace tea.

The shop also offers Philippine Civet Arabica, one of the most sought-after coffee. And true enough, the brew could be one of Davao’s best.

Cruzado says that since the café opened, it has been receiving positive reviews from its many customers: students, young professionals, NGO workers, church people and missionaries, and people from the academe.

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