Manoamano e.V.

About us

Manoamano is a non-profit association founded in the spring of 2020, with the goal of establishing a German-Honduran coffee cooperation. Manoamano - coffee from hand to hand.

Our vision is to build a stable cooperation between the village of El Guineo and the agents in Germany and to import approx. 1000 kg of roasted beans annually.

The goal is to import a fully refined product that is only sold to customers in Germany. This would make the livelihood of small farmers more independent and trade a little fairer. We wish to promote intercultural understanding and build up a stable network, so that together we can shape the world anew.

As a non-profit association, our focus is not only on promoting development cooperation, international attitudes and tolerance, but also on raising awareness of sustainable trade and the responsible consumption of agricultural raw materials such as our coffee.

The background
Behind Manoamano there is a group of volunteers, formerly from the student initiative Weitblick Münster e.V., and a group of small-scale farmers and helpers in Honduras and Germany. During a joint trip of the Weitblick association and the German-Honduran Society in 2019, we visited the village of El Guineo and were welcomed with a cup of coffee. During the exchange it became clear that the smallholders are contractually bound to large corporations in the USA. The remuneration of their work is subject to fluctuations in the world market price and this means a real threat to the livelihood of many people. The idea of bringing the great-tasting coffee beans to Münster became reality for the first time in autumn 2019.

What makes our project special?
In our project, the coffee is roasted in Honduras after the harvest. The majority of the value chain therefore lies in the country of origin. This is very rare, because the roasting process is particularly profitable for large corporations and therefore it is generally the raw beans that are exported. In the future, the packaging process will also take place in Honduras so that we can sell a finished product in Germany.

The focus should be on fair wages for smallholders and conscious coffee consumption in Germany. Our keywords are “directly, fair, personal” and can be explained as follows:
• Direct - the roasted beans are traded exclusively between the association “Café de El Guineo”, from Honduras, and the Manoamano association, based in Münster - there are no intermediaries, as this creates more profit for the smallholders.
• fair - the smallholders usually get around 30 cents for a pound of green coffee. We pay around 6 euros for a pound of refined coffee.
• Personal - We think it's nice to know who is behind the cultivation, harvest and roasting of our favorite beverage and what impact we have on each other's lives. We maintain contact and want to maintain this special friendship.

By arrangement, we can provide advice to other net participants and arrange contacts in the field of coffee consumption, direct coffee trade, establishment of associations, educational events.
On request, we can offer overnight accommodation with our members. Our association is based in Münster, but we are also represented in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, Lübeck and Duisburg.
By arrangement, we can provide advice or arrange contacts for other network participants. We don't see ourselves as experts yet, but we are willing to share our experiences and learning processes with other people. We look forward to volunteer helpers with their own experience and tips or even people who would like to support the project directly through their purchase. In addition, we are always open to the design and implementation of cooperative, thematically appropriate educational events or projects.