Chiapas Mexico:

July 16-21, 2008

$750.00USD, includes in-country transportation, two meals per day, accommodation, and donations to organizations we speak with and groups we stay with. Airfare is additional.

Trip highlights may include:

-Travel to Zapatista government center, Oventic, to meet with government officials as well as tour their school, clinic, and women artisan’s cooperatives;

-Visit and meet with officials in Acteal, a Las Abejas community and site of the 1997 massacre, to learn about their communities’ history, their relationship to the Zapatistas, and their peaceful struggle for autonomy;

-Meet with members of coffee growing cooperatives that Just Coffee purchases coffee from and tour their land and coffee plots;

-Visit Cafe Museu, a small museum that documents the history of coffee;

-Meet with CIEPAC, the Center for the Economic and Political Investigation for Community Action, to find out about their work in the region as well as discuss global trade and trade agreements;

-Meet with CAPISE, the Center of Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigations, to learn more about the Zapatistas historical and on-going struggle and to learn more about organizations working in solidarity with them;

-Tour CIDESI, the Universidad de la Tierra, and were highly impressed by the autonomous services offered by this University such as classes in weaving, shoe making, car repair, electricity, animal husbandry, agriculture, and much much more;

-Visit the Maya Medicine Museum, a museum which consists of several museographic environments depicting the traditional Mayan practices and therapeutic resources of the indigenous physicians of Chiapas and also possesses six exhibit spaces and a demonstrative garden containing many important medicinal plants;

-Tour Taller Lenateros, a Mayan-language publishing collective;

-Visit local produce and handicraft markets, sample delicious Mexican dishes from Chiapas, and have an excellent adventure meeting new people, sharing thoughts and ideas, and absorbing as much information as possible about where your coffee comes from.

For more information or to sign-up for a delegation, please contact Just Coffee's Delegation Coordinator Colleen Coy at: colleen (at) justcoffee (dot) coop. Thank you for your continued interest and support!