KNCU award event - a story told by Faraja

Many Shamba Coffee Tour farmers awoke with special excitement on the day of the Cup of Excellence award. The farmers who have spent the last 4 years working with the project by offering coffee tours, Chagga hike, Village walk and wonderful meals found out that their work had earned an international award.

Those farmers that have been working with the project from the beginning and those who are hard working were elected by the villagers to go to attend the ceremony in Moshi. In addition, going to Moshi to see the sights and sounds and being able to buy products they cannot get in their rural villages of course put extra icing on top of winning the award.

Among the chosen farmers was Raphael Msoka. He was delighted that after 4 years, the work has been recognized all over the word. This recognition helped increase everybody’s motivation to work even harder so they will win a higher prize next time. Another farmer who attended was Mariana Rambau. She has always made sure guest are having a wonderful meals. In addition, she organized women groups about environment matters along the campsite and outdoors.

We, working in development and administration for the tours, felt our spirits lifted too, even though we already live in Moshi. “The rising spirits of the farmers from receiving the award plus the recognition of the good job we have done together with the farmers increases our determination. And we have hope that this recognition will bring even more people to the Kahawa Shamba Coffee Tours. This will increase our effectiveness at educating people about the human effort represented by every excellent cup of coffee that a person drinks.And it will boost us even closer toward our mission of improving the lives of these coffee farmers.” 

Writen by Faraja, Assistant Project Manager of KNCU Tourism Project