Assata, Eugénie and Sarah
Assata Doumbia
Assata is a cocoa farmer and president of her cocoa cooperative. She has led her cooperative to become one of the top three in the Côte d’Ivoire.
Eugénie Lago
A cocoa farmer in the Côte d’Ivoire, Eugenie leads a women’s association that helps members diversify their crops to increase profits and alleviate poverty within the community.
Sarah Larweh
Sarah is a cocoa farmer and board member of her cooperative in Ghana where she works to address and resolve instances of child labor, an injustice that is rooted in poverty.
Highlighting the importance of Fairtrade
To celebrate these incredible women, we co-created a mural in Austin with J Muzacz at the Wheatsville Co-op. Our hope is that this mural will remind shoppers and passers-by that we play an important role in the lives of farmers whether we can see them or not, and that choosing Fairtrade products makes an impact.
Tony’s Chocolonely – one of the brands that Assata, Eugénie and Sarah grow cocoa for – is committed to ending modern slavery and illegal child labor in the chocolate industry through paying higher prices to cocoa farmers; trading directly with cocoa farmers to ensure traceability; and investing in the stability and well-being of cocoa cooperatives. Tony’s partnered with Fairtrade to calculate and implement a higher price for cocoa that compensates for the average farmers’ expenses, family size and level of disposable income needed to achieve a good quality of life.
The Artist
Meet J Muzacz
J Muzacz is an artist and educator passionate about social advocacy. A native Texan, Muzacz has created large-scale murals all over the world, including New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan. His work has been commissioned by Facebook, Anheuser-Busch, the City of Austin and other high-profile organizations. Muzacz’s latest passion project is an artist-run creative hub, known as The Mosaic Workshop, where he teaches the process of public art creation and installation through a collaborative, hands-on process.
Years ago, Muzacz worked as a day laborer working on sugarcane and mango farms in Okinawa Japan. His first-hand experience gave him insight into the hardships and unrelenting conditions that farmers are faced with every day to harvest staples people enjoy.
The location
Wheatsville Co-op
Wheatsville Food Co-op is a full-service, natural foods cooperative grocery store serving the central Austin community since 1976. Its primary mission is to supply high-quality food and unbiased information about food to the Austin community. The only retail food cooperative in Texas, Wheatsville Co-op has more than 24,000 invested owners and operates two locations. It has been voted ‘Best Neighborhood Grocery’ by The Austin Chronicle’s Readers Poll for eleven years running.
