May 2012 

The Abyssinian Fund is the only non-governmental organization operating in Ethiopia founded by an African-American church. (Photo courtesy of the The Abyssinian Fund)

TadiasMagazine
By Tadias Staff
Updated: Saturday, January 21, 2012

New York (TADIAS) – As part of their bicentennial celebration, Harlem-based Abyssinian Baptist Church organized a historic first trip to Ethiopia in 2007 with more than 150 members. Their visit coincided with celebrations for the Ethiopian Millennium. Upon return, the church created a non-profit organization called The Abyssinian Fund (TAF) that is dedicated to sustainable development projects in Africa.

Today TAF is a partner with a co-op of 900 farmers in Ethiopia, assisting them with production of premium coffee for export. “We work with the farmers by helping them grow higher quality coffee beans so they can reinvest in their communities,” Reverend Nicholas S. Richards, President of the Abyssinian Fund, said in a recent interview with Tadias Magazine. “The farmers work with our field director Zerihun Tessema Fanta and field coordinator Demeke Hailu, who are based in Chaffee Jenette.” He added: “Together, our staff has over 40 years of expert coffee experience and agronomy training. We hire experts who introduce farmers to modern equipment, coffee nurseries and innovative techniques to produce better coffee.

TAF is the only non-governmental organization operating in Ethiopia founded by an African-American church. And according to Rev. Richards, the NGO is making an impact not only in Ethiopia but also here in Harlem. “The Abyssinian Fund was born after a life-changing trip to Africa,” he said. “I became convinced that black people in America had to reconnect culturally and economically with Africa.”

Rev. Nicholas Stuart Richards

Rev. Richards has made several trips to Ethiopia in the last couple of years. “Ethiopia means so much to me,” he said. “While I love how cosmopolitan and hip Addis has become, I continue to enjoy the rural experience of Harrar. I enjoy driving for long stretches in Harrar, where the scenery is filled with green plains and cattle grazing in small ponds.” He added: “It’s a great way to clear my head of all the stresses of living in New York.”

Reflecting on memorable moments that he spent in Ethiopia, Rev. Richards said: “On my first trip to a village I camped on the floor of the local school so we could conduct a research study. I’m an adventurous eater but village cooking is something else. I had to purchase two goats and oversee the slaughter for a week’s worth of tibs. Good times! Television depicts Africa as a place of poverty with desperate and warring people. This is not true. One visit to Ethiopia proves that.”

Rev. Richards pointed out that TAF has rekindled a long but dormant relationship between Ethiopia and the African-American church. “The Church was founded by a group of Ethiopian sea merchants and African Americans more than 200 years ago,” he said. “During this time, when church seating was segregated, the group decided to take a stand and start their own church.” He added: “The name, Abyssinian, is a sign of respect for those pioneering founders. The members officially organized to become The Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, the oldest African-American Baptist church in New York State.”

How can the Ethiopian-American community get involved with the fund’s projects? “The Abyssinian Fund needs your partnership,” Rev. Richards said. “Ethiopian culture is so vibrant and there is a huge presence here in America. It would only make sense for all of us to get together and have a discussion about the needs of Ethiopia and how we can address them. Who better to speak on Ethiopia than those who have a personal connection with the country.”

As TAF continues to grow and expand it is also paying tribute to the diverse cultures in Harlem and finding ways to give back to a neighborhood that continually supports the church’s movement. TAF has created partnerships with approximately 17 local businesses in New York and 10% of every purchase goes to supporting the mission of The Abyssinian Fund.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is upon us once more and people around the world will celebrate his enduring work and legacy. Most of us are fully aware of his struggle for civil rights by his efforts to transform U.S. domestic policy that perpetuated injustice and inequality. Many of us are less aware of his international advocacy, specifically as it relates to Africa. In fact, Dr. King was just as committed to raising awareness about injustices beyond our shores as in our homeland.

In December 1965, while speaking at Hunter College in New York City, Dr. King addressed apartheid in South Africa and the complex human rights issues facing people of African descent throughout the world. In this address he stated, “We are in an era in which the issue of human rights is the central question confronting all nations. In this complex struggle an obvious but little appreciated fact has gained attention — the large majority of the human race is non-white — yet it is that large majority which lives in hideous poverty. While millions enjoy an unexampled opulence in developed nations, ten thousand people die of hunger each and every day of the year in the undeveloped world.” Sadly, nearly 50 years later, such conditions still exist. 

Dr. King’s work fully embraced the now famous mantra he coined in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Fortunately in 2012 we have seen a surge of young leaders who are following in the footsteps of Dr. King by fighting these injustices. Some are utilizing their voices as advocates for policy change while others have developed creative solutions to address poverty in distant lands. 

Rev. Nicholas S. Richards is one such person. He is the co-founder and president of the Abyssinian Fund, an organization that works to reduce poverty in Ethiopia. Since its inception in 2009, The Abyssinian Fund partners with Ethiopian coffee farmers to help them learn more efficient methods of farming. The training the farmers receive promotes the production of higher quality coffee that they can sell at a premium rate. This effective system helps the farmers and communities improve their livelihood, ultimately leading to poverty reduction. There are also young leaders like Chad Martin based out of Martinsville, VA. As a graduate of Bread for the World’s first Hunger Justice Leaders class in 2008, Chad continues to organize his local community to take action on behalf of hungry and poor people through the power of their voice and pen.

Bread for the World is giving young leaders an opportunity to do the same at the biennial Hunger Justice Leaders event from June 9 to 12, 2012, in Washington, DC. Under the theme, “From the Pulpit to the Public Square,” 75 young ministers and religious leaders will explore the biblical foundations for advocacy, gain skills in community organizing, and connect with like-minded ministers from across the country. They’ll then have a chance to test their skills by advocating on behalf of hungry and poor people at Capitol Hill Lobby Day 2012. To find out how you can continue Dr. King’s legacy through anti-hunger advocacy, visit the Hunger Justice Leaders website and email hjl2012@bread.org.

Rev. Derrick Boykin serves as associate for African-American leadership outreach at Bread for the World.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Rev. Nicholas Richards, an assistant minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y., has traveled to the village of Chaffee Jenette in the eastern highlands of Ethiopia five times in less than two years. And each time he is as uplifted as he is heartbroken.

Life in the highlands can be extremely tough. Chaffee Jenette is a remote, coffee-growing village where women and young girls routinely walk four hours to fetch fresh water to cook and bathe. There are no paved roads, and during the rainy season the place fills like a soup bowl, keeping the children from school for weeks on end. Pregnant women sometimes die while walking along the long, dusty road to the nearest hospital.

The average annual income is only about $400, most of which derives from farming or is squeezed from the prized coffee beans that grow throughout the region.

And it is coffee, the second-most traded commodity in the world behind oil, that keeps bringing Richards back to the village. Richards is the president and co-founder of the Abyssinian Fund, the church’s international aid and development arm. The Abyssinian Fund launched in 2010 with a mission to improve the quality of the farmers’ lives by helping them to improve the quality of their coffee beans. While Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, and its beans are among the most prized on the world market, the farmers make little more than $1 a day.

The Abyssinian Fund is the only non-governmental organization in Ethiopia founded by an African-American church, according to Ethiopian officials. The connection between the church and Ethiopia runs extremely deep: Abyssinian takes its name from Abyssinia, a historical name for Ethiopia. The church was founded in 1808 by free blacks and Ethiopian merchant seamen who formed their own congregation rather than worship as part of a segregated one.

The fund has teamed with a co-op of 700 coffee farmers in the region to purchase equipment and offer specialized training. By helping the farmers produce a higher quality product, the hope is to make them more competitive on the global coffee market. As the co-op’s income increases, some of the money will be directed to a fund that will support local development projects like health clinics, roads and schools.

“People are struggling, but they are also trying to better themselves,” Richards said. “They are people who are worth investing in. They really are on the cusp of development, what we see ourselves as doing is giving them just that extra push.”

“Very satisfied with the progress we’ve made. The ball has definitely moved from a concept to us actually on the ground training the farmers,” said Rev. Calvin Butts III, the head minister at Abyssinian.

But fundraising continues to be a concern. The fund has relied largely on its own congregation for financial support. They have also held Ethiopian art sales and received some funding from Unicef, as well as the Andrew Goodman Foundation, which awarded Richards a Hidden Heroes Award for his work with the fund.

“I think it’s just getting them to know about what we are doing,” said Butts. “I think the more that people understand what we are doing, the more they will invest.”

So far, the Aby Fund, as Richard calls it, has spent about $150,000 in Chaffee Jenette. Most of that money has gone into establishing the ground operation there, hiring Ethiopian staff and conducting trainings.

The trainers teach planting and harvesting techniques and teach farmers how to select only the choicest coffee beans. Often, the value of the farmers’ product is diminished by picking beans prematurely, and poor storage and harvesting practices. In March, the organization plans to build a coffee bean nursery for about 50,000 seeds, to protect against a disease that is killing off much of the local crop.

The fund will also provide equipment, including scissors, shears and mechanized pickers. Many farmers still pick their crops with their bare hands, the way their ancestors have for centuries.

Richards said he hopes to marry charity with capitalism and eventually to brand and sell the co-op’s coffee to major coffee companies.

The early training sessions were mostly filled with lifelong farmers, men in their 50s whose families have been harvesting the prized, green coffee beans for hundreds of years. But Richards, who spent two weeks in November and early December observing the sessions and checking on the project’s progress, said that more young people, about half of them women, have attended the recent training sessions.

“Now it’s a younger group of people being taught, and the impact can be that much more lasting,” Richards said. “They probably will be able to bring another level of sophistication, and will be able to go to more trainings and have the energy to really apply what they’ve learned to practice.”

Richards said what they hope to pull off in the village, and with those farmers, is anything but charity.

“It’s not just good will and never-ending charity,” he said. “We strongly believe that with just a little support from us, these farms can take total control of their future.”

Demeke Hailu, the Abyssinian Fund’s project coordinator in Ethiopia, said that 85 percent of the population is directly dependent on agricultural work. He said the resources and technical knowledge the farmers are getting through the fund has been life-changing.

“It is like being reborn,” Hailu said.

During Richard’s trip, he said he rose early and wandered the village before the training sessions for the day began. He said more than anything, he had to balance his appreciation of the beauty of the place and the people with their poverty.

“They’re not looking to have all the things that we have and that we value. They have their own quality of life and their own way of life,” he said. “But the thing about poverty is that you can become numb to it because it’s so much in your face in Ethiopia. But you have to fight against that: You can’t ignore the children or women begging in the street, you have to see them and do something about it.”

Richards continued: “It’s not just charity and raising money to do something, it’s how do we bring investments and infrastructure to Africa to develop the local economy.”