Our hearts, our thoughts and our best wishes go out to our partners in Indonesia as they struggle to reconstruct their lives in the wake of terrible destruction.

Persatuan Petani Kopi Gayo Organik (Gayo Organic Coffee Farmer’s Association or PPKGO), a 1,900-member farmer's cooperative working in 24 communities of the Gayo Highlands of Sumatra, produces all the Sumatran coffee that we trade, roast and savor on a daily basis. The cooperative is headquartered in Aceh, the Indonesian province recently devastated by earthquakes and tsunamis.

At Cooperative Coffees, we consider Sumatra not just a coffee source, but more importantly home to producers, their families and the communities and organizations they have constructed. We have worked together, before destruction hit, to understand the local realities each of us face and to be flexible and collaborative in our struggle to create examples of Fair Trade.

Following the devastation of the tsunami, our members scrambled to send immediate aid. Dean's Beans alone was able to send more than $12,000 to the region! These donations have been used to help relief efforts for coffee growers and their families in the Takengon coffee region, as well as providing emergency aid to the most severely affected areas in Aceh Province. Currently the areas identified as having the greatest needs for relief work are in the coastal areas of Banda Aceh in the north and Bireun on the east coast.

“Immediately after the earthquake struck on December 26th, PPKGO and our partnering coffee processor CV Trimaju provided temporary shelter to people in the Gayo Highlands who lost their homes in the earthquake,” reported ForesTrade Indonesia Director Lucia Sembiring. “A search party was sent from Takengon to Banda Aceh to try and locate family members, and especially children from the coffee communities who were attending schools in the Capitol City. Tragically, 13 children of PPKGO members are still missing and presumed to be dead.”

The first priorities were to coordinate the collection and delivery of rice, fresh vegetables, sarongs and blankets for people in Banda Aceh and Bireun, and to create temporary shelter for those people who lost their homes in the coffee growing area of Takengon as a result of the earthquakes. PPKGO and CV Trimaju collected 8 truckloads of rice, fresh vegetables, and other supplies from Takengon and 20 coop members loaded up their trucks and drove down to Banda Aceh to distribute the food and supplies, with members are staying in the area to help in the relief work.

“ForesTrade is deeply moved by the outpouring of concern and support for the people of Aceh in Sumatra and for the PPKGO, our coffee-growing partners in Takengon,” reports ForesTrade Director Thomas Fricke. “The overwhelming concern has been for the safety of the producers and how to constructively respond to a tragedy of this scale.”

But now, several weeks later, we realize that there is a long road ahead for recovery. On-going support will be required for clean-up and repair of infrastructure to ensure clean water and safe living conditions for the population.