By Olivia Allen
On Sunday, March 2, 30 students enrolled in “Advanced Studies in Social Entrepreneurship” will travel to Kingston, Jamaica to study sustainable enterprise solutions to extreme poverty in rural communities. The international field practicum component of the course will allow students to closely examine and evaluate the players in agricultural value chains – from impact investors, retailers in the private sector, Fair Trade cooperatives, and the end consumers – and their role in ameliorating rural poverty.
Throughout the week, students will not only visit large companies like Jablum Coffee, a retailer selling Blue Mountain Coffee, considered a premium product due to its highly specified growing methods, but the smallholder farmers from which the coffee is sourced. Students will also conduct field research with microcredit borrowers in urban dwellings, as well as grassroots organizations like Farm Up Jamaica that supports Jamaican farmers’ widespread return to agrarian lifestyles in the face of exceedingly high costs for imported agricultural commodities.
In addition to meeting with agricultural producers across the island, site visits to microfinance institutions such as MCL Jamaica, a past SEI grantee, nonprofits working to mitigate youth violence in Jamaica, and social enterprises providing agricultural inputs for farmers, these site visits to social enterprises will serve to inform students’ decisions on the disbursement of an impact investment provided by the Barker-Johst Foundation.
With this grant, SEI students seek to grow their global reach and capitalize a high-impact organization or cooperative. One grantee, the Chinantlan Agricultural Cooperative was identified as a high impact entity was recipient of a $10,000 grant provided by the Barker-Johst Foundation in 2012 and has experienced success in their last growing season. Despite high rainfall that led to the precipitous spread of a harmful fungus rendering many of the cooperative’s plants unproductive, the Chinantlan Agricultural Cooperative and its 40 small farmers can celebrate the rewards of their hard work – bushels of Jamaica rose and papaya, which will be sold to both local consumers and nationally, through contacts in Managua.
To support student travel for the Jamaica field practicum, please consider donating via Northeastern’s Catalyst Platform.
