From Beans To A Brighter Future, How Coffee Empowers Local Families

At Westerlaken Foundation, our mission to help our communities near and far has always been to meet where our community stands, and here at Westerlaken, family empowerment means giving a helping hand to children and families who've slipped through the cracks of society and stand on their own again. Our focus on providing financial and material support helps keep children in school to further their prospects, and gives parents a breathing space to plan their next steps with confidence. 

Today, our new initiative introduced by the Foundation, dubbed ‘My Kopi’ seeks to change the approach in how we help families get on their own footing and help create new opportunities for learning and growth through hands-on experience and skill building that paves a road for families to be more self-sufficient and reduce their dependency for financial assistance. 

The ‘My Kopi’ initiative, accompanied with a small coffee corner, offers a safe and reliable training ground for families to invest in their future by allowing participating families to gain invaluable work experience and new expertise to secure more pathways for future success. With sustainably sourced ingredients, delectable offerings, and reasonable prices, ‘My Kopi’ cultivates participants to tackle systemic issues that plague our local communities.

Our initiative allows families to expand and develop new working and business skills that other typical business ventures may not be able to provide. A supportive learning environment for families to operate and learn to their fullest allows for practical and business skills to be practiced without worry. Our ‘My Kopi’ offers participating families to earn a percentage of profits derived from sales to empower the home economic front and assist families in achieving financial stability.

With the cost of operations partially covered through sales and the rest by Westerlaken, we understand the need to empower families through stress-free environments to help families learn, make mistakes, and grow entrepreneurial skills for a better future. 

Thus, ‘My kopi’ aims to tackle the root cause of structural poverty by offering families more than just temporary aid. Our growth-orientated environment offers insights into business operations and other practical service skills, equipping families with the tools and confidence they need to grow.

With its opening just days away, ‘My Kopi’ represents a cornerstone for Westelaken's new approach in tackling and combating systemic inequality within our community. This initiative is designed to help reduce the financial dependency  within our empowerment program and expand participant's mindset towards more opportunities that they can invest for a better future.