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27 December 2005
American Tea Merchant Improves Lives of Darjeeling Tea Growers
Tazo Tea forms partnership with development group, tea estate managers
Portland, Oregon -- In the mountains of eastern India, the pickers pluck the tender top leaves from the tea bushes that cover the slopes like a great green blanket. When they have finished, the sacks of leaves are taken to the factories for drying and fermentation. The resulting withered black wisps are "the champagne of teas," from the great Darjeeling tea estates. This precious cargo is trucked down the mountains to India's bustling ports for shipment to markets around the world.
After these teas left, what came back to Darjeeling? What could one expect to come back? In the past, the answer was enough money to pay the workers' modest wages and maintain the tea estates. This has begun to change.
Through a remarkable partnership between an American tea company and a private American nonprofit group, hundreds of thousands of dollars that might have gone into company profits, instead have come back to Darjeeling in the form of new programs to improve the tea growers' lives.
In cooperation with the management of the tea estates, Tazo Tea, a seller of specialty teas based in Portland, Oregon, has teamed with Mercy Corps, an international relief organization, to deliver programs to bolster health care, provide infrastructure, deliver vocational training and improve community life in one of the humblest regions of India.
These new programs are the dream child of Steve Smith, founder of Tazo Tea. Smith, dressed in casual shirt, no tie, no coat -- the laid-back style of the American Northwest -- speaks with quiet intensity of his desire to help the people who grow the teas he sells. "After traveling to India for 20 years, I found the people to be delightful, having so little, yet being so pure of heart," he says. "I wanted to do something to help them."
SEARCHING FOR A SUSTAINABLE AID PROGRAM
Smith started modestly in the early 1990s. While working with another tea company, he donated money for the purchase of schoolbooks for villages near the tea estates. In 2002, six years after founding Tazo, he launched a more far-reaching and systematic program, the Collaboration for Hope and Advancement in India (CHAI).
"I had started to think of something we might do that would be sustainable, going beyond the structure of the tea estates," he says. "The basis of our program is not just to put money back in, but to support the region and to see that the neediest find support."
Smith knew that he needed a partner to bring his vision to reality. After some searching, he found an international relief organization located in Portland, less than 5 kilometers from his company headquarters.
By coincidence, Mercy Corps, too, was looking for a chance to realize an expanded vision. The organization had an excellent reputation in disaster relief, but it wanted to extend the scope of its programs and shared Smith's desire for a sustainable aid program. It proved an excellent match.
Hayley Hawes, a program officer with Mercy Corps' office of corporate partnership, said, "Mercy Corps was really intrigued by the social and economic issues of the program. We also wanted to move beyond the usual donor-recipient relationship," in which one party writes the checks while the other carries out the work, "to a real partnership in which we both had a stake."
The program they developed, CHAI, has established programs in three areas of emphasis:
• Improving health conditions, especially through improved sanitation and access to clean water;
• Enhancing community development by helping villagers find the means to address the needs that they deem most urgent; and
• Working towards a more prosperous future by developing leadership and vocational skills among the region's young people.
Smith said the estate managers also emerged as participants in the development projects.
"Many of them are trying to do the right thing," said Smith, who added that management, too, struggles with a lack of resources. "It's best for everyone to find a more harmonious way to work."
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS
In its more than three years of existence, CHAI has exceeded expectations. More than 120 villages have applied to participate in the program, which originally was designed for 12 villages. In the program's second year, Tazo and Mercy Corps added 12 more. The spending target for the first three years of $600,000 has been exceeded by almost 50 percent.
CHAI enters its second three-year program having achieved impressive results. Modern pipes have replaced leaky bamboo water systems, bringing more and cleaner water to villages. The initiative has resulted in the construction of 395 latrines and has enabled 6,053 people to receive emergency health care and referral services. Under the initiative, 58 youth loans destined for 29 businesses have been granted, and training has been organized for 27 paramedics and 269 peer educators, the latter of whom have taught 10,465 people. Muddy, dangerous footpaths have been resurfaced to allow safer passage. Roads have been improved and community centers built.
Starbucks Coffee, which has purchased Tazo and retained Smith to oversee its tea operations, has been a full partner, adding its financial support and encouragement. The tea estates have made important contributions, resulting in the sort of multidimensional partnership that Smith had envisioned.
One memorable case involved two villages with a long history of mutual ill will. Each wanted a new community center for its exclusive use. Smith proposed building one community center on the condition that the two villages share it. After difficult negotiations, they finally agreed, opening a new relationship between the two villages.
CHAI goes beyond physical infrastructure to create human infrastructure, or capacity building. Unemployment and lack of health care often hinder the development of the tea-growing regions, leading to unrest and reduced economic activity, Smith says. CHAI addresses both issues by training many otherwise unemployed young men and women as health workers. CHAI has helped train others in fields as varied as television repair and taxi driving. Smith says that Tazo, Starbucks and the tea growers "are trying to improve living conditions and create opportunities for those living and working in the villages of the tea-growing regions."
Smith and Mercy Corps avoid imposing solutions on the area and instead allow the villagers to establish their project priorities. CHAI envisions a time when these villages will have developed the capacity to address their challenges without the need for outside help.
Seeking new horizons, Tazo and Mercy Corps are hoping to expand the CHAI program into neighboring tea growing regions.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
