In honor of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 8th, Global Exchange is teaming up with farmer-owned chocolate company Divine Chocolate to celebrate the women of Divine’s farmer collective, Kuapa Kokoo. This Spring, Divine will be donating a portion of their sales to the Kuapa Kokoo’s Women’s Project; they’re teaching women cocoa farmers how to start small businesses, earn extra family income, and feel tremendous pride. You can show your support by purchasing Divine Chocolate 3.5 oz bars at the San Francisco Global Exchange Store (map) for the month of March, and we’ll give you $1.00 off!

Supporting Divine Chocolate and the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative is supporting real farmers, and not simply a chocolate company. Divine is the only Fair Trade chocolate company that is 45% owned by farmers. While being certified Fair Trade ensures that farmers receive a better price for their cocoa, company ownership gives farmers a share of Divine’s profits!

The partial liberalization of Ghana’s cocoa market in the early 1990s created a unique situation for cocoa farmers to organize in an industry where their voices were not being heard. Visionary farmer Nana Frimpong  Abrebrese organized a group of farmers to pool resources and set up a farmer’s co-op, which would trade its own cocoa, and thus manage the selling process more efficiently than the government cocoa agents. Kuapa Kokoo, which means “good cocoa growers,” was born.

In 1997, the reputable and fast-growing Kuapa Kokoo’s farmer collective had another idea. If they could manage a cocoa-farming cooperative, why not manage a chocolate company?

Divine Chocolate was born. Now a leading Fair Trade brand, Divine has given its farmers a secure source of Fair Trade income. Kuapa Kokoo invests in building schools, sinking wells and clean drinking water for villages, providing mobile medical clinics for farmers in remote growing regions, and fostering women’s income generation projects to help women earn additional income for their families when the cocoa season is over.

You can celebrate the women of Kuapa Kokoo this spring by purchasing Divine Chocolate at San Francisco’s Global Exchange Store! $1.00 off all 3.5 oz bars for the month of March.