East Timor
With the Fair Trade premium, the co-op has invested in a health care program that handles more than 16,000 cases each month. Its facilities include 10 fixed clinics and 24 mobile clinics that provide free services to coffee farmers and their families.
The program currently reaches 115,000 in rural and coastal Timor. Historically, these families have been poorly serviced or isolated from mainstream health services.
Peru
The CSECANOR cooperative is comprised of twenty percent women. Furthermore women have been delegated leading roles on Peru's coffee boards. CSECANOR has organized a credit program with local community banks that offers small loans to women to enable them to start small projects in their communities. Using Fairtrade profits, CSECANOR has created ‘Collaborative Credits', a program of financial support for families to assist them during times of fiscal difficulty. This enables families to pay for their children's education and healthcare. The program has donated over US$100,000 in helping 1000 families.
These benefits are underscored by considerable improvements in health care, which has included the hiring of healthcare professionals to assist cooperative members in primary care, maternal health, childcare, infant diseases and other such things. Fairtrade profits have ensured that in each of the communities of the cooperative, there is a permanent medical post and a fully equipped first aid kit. This ensures hat medical emergencies are dealt with quickly and safely.
Costa Rica
Through the fiscal support derived from fairtrade, COOCAFE has been able to undertake two significant projects aimed at social and environmental sustainability. Hijos del Campos was founded at the request of producers to provide better standards of education for their children. Since its inception in 1995, as many as one thousand children have been granted financial assistance to continue their studies and over two hundred rural schools have been able to improve infrastructure and equipment and purchase teaching materials. In 2002 alone, US$100, 000 was allocated to programs assisting students and schools from the areas of the producer groups.
The Foundación Café Forestal was set up in 1993 to ensure the protection of Costa Rica's unique natural environment. The foundation has invested more than US$270, 000 on over eighty five different projects aimed at achieving the goal of the sustainable use of natural resources whilst still ensuring producers' economic needs are met. This has resulted in major reforestation exercises, the use of organic fertilisers and a switch to organic products and water and soil conservation. Extensive education programs ensure these ideals are realised.