In November 2025, two team members from Royal Coffee arrived in Hawassa, Ethiopia, just as the workday was getting underway at the Fero Co-op coffee processing facility. Coffee cherries were being sorted and dried, and farmers moved through their usual routines. But over the course of two days, something shifted. Between tasks, dozens of women took a break from their work and into a different kind of line—one that led to HPV screening.

What started as an ordinary day at the co-op became an opportunity—one that gave each woman the chance to take a simple test that could change the course of her life. Royal witnessed how our clinical team administers the majority of our mobile screening campaigns: not in clinics, but in the middle of daily life. In communities where women may walk 10 kilometers to see a doctor, we meet them where they are.

Royal’s team traveled beyond the co-op as well, visiting government-run hospitals and seeing firsthand how early detection connects to treatment and long-term care. Along the way, stories unfolded from nurses and health workers— stories of resilience, of barriers, and of the quiet but powerful impact of access. 

Royal’s partnership with Grounds for Health spans decades, rooted in a belief that responsible sourcing is about more than coffee—it’s about people. It’s about recognizing that the health of a supply chain begins with the health of the individuals within it.

What makes partnerships like this matter isn’t just funding—it’s presence. By coming to origin, listening, and learning, Royal helps close the distance between the global coffee industry and the women at its heart. These shared moments—often over delicious cups of coffee—build a different kind of connection, one that’s grounded in mutual respect and a shared understanding that all women, no matter where they live, deserve access to cancer prevention.

“There is so much more at play than just a transaction between a grower and a consumer. Obviously, there is the supply chain at hand but through organizations like GfH, there is community support, uplifting women, providing health care and education,” said Isabella Vitaliano, Royal’s Lab & QC Specialist who made the trip to Ethiopia.

Thankfully, our photographer Nafkot Gebeyehu was there to capture it all. Through her lens, a deeper story emerges — one of cross-cultural connection, of women coffee farmers, and of what becomes possible when we act together toward a more equitable world.

Read more about their experience on the Royal Coffee blog.

Learn more about their 2026 fundraiser for GfH.

The post Royal Coffee Field Visit: Strengthening Partnerships in Ethiopia first appeared on Grounds for Health.

At Bennetts, we’ve always believed that coffee can be a powerful force for good. For more than 15 years, we’ve proudly supported Grounds for Health—a nonprofit organisation delivering life-saving cervical cancer prevention in coffee-growing communities. What began as a shared belief in creating real and lasting change has evolved into a long-standing partnership built on impact, trust, and a deep respect for the communities at the heart of our industry.

The Bennetts team visiting our clinical team at a health center in Oromia, Ethiopia in 2024.

This year, we’re excited to take that partnership a step further with a collaborative charity auction—our first joint initiative of this kind. Taking place on August 27-28th, the auction will feature two exceptional coffees, including a rare and limited lot from Café Granja La Esperanza (CGLE), a name synonymous with innovation and excellence in the specialty coffee world. All proceeds from the auction will go directly to Grounds for Health, helping fund essential cervical cancer screenings, early treatment, and training for healthcare providers in underserved regions.

We’ve chosen to deepen our support in this way because we believe in the power of shared purpose. Cervical cancer is both preventable and treatable, yet it remains one of the leading causes of cancer death among women in low-resource settings. Grounds for Health is tackling this head-on by working alongside coffee cooperatives and local health organisations to deliver care directly to the communities that need it most. Their model is mobile, sustainable, and community-focused—ensuring that women not only receive timely screening but the treatment required to ensure cancer never develops. Since 1996, the organisation has screened more than 240,000 women and provided treatment to over 19,000.

This auction represents a meaningful way for the broader coffee community to get involved. Whether you’re a roaster, barista, buyer or just a lover of exceptional coffee, your participation makes a difference.

You’re not only bidding on some truly outstanding coffees—you’re also helping fund healthcare that can save lives and build stronger, healthier communities in the very regions where your coffee is grown.

We’re incredibly proud to be working with Grounds for Health on this initiative and can’t wait for you to get involved. Please see the below steps on how you can get involved in this great initiative!

How to get involved:

1. Pre-register on the auction site: www.bennetts.gfhauction.org/ 
2. Bid big—or simply help spread the word across your networks.
3. Follow the impact: after the auction we’ll share stories and data from the women whose screenings you helped fund.

NOTE: This auction is for roasters/bidders in Australia only.

The post Bennetts Coffee Auction: Bid on rare coffees and support our health programs August 27-28 first appeared on Grounds for Health.

As the Kenya Country Coordinator at Grounds for Health, I was honored to participate as a key stakeholder in the development of the Kenya National Cervical Cancer Elimination Action Plan; a landmark initiative by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with ThinkWell. This initiative comes at a time when Kenya urgently needs to bridge significant gaps in cervical cancer prevention and control.

Currently, cervical cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among Kenyan women. Approximately 10 women die each day, with only 58% of girls vaccinated, 31% of women screened, and 26% of those diagnosed receiving treatment, figures far below the WHO’s 2030 elimination targets of 90% vaccinated – 70% screened – 90% treated. The national action plan seeks to reverse this trend through a structured, costed, and sustainable approach.

To eliminate cervical cancer within the next century, countries must reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 100,000 women. Currently the incidence rate in Kenya is 33 per 100,000 women. 

I participated in two co-creation workshops in Naivasha. The first focused on a root cause analysis of barriers to cervical cancer elimination using the WHO Health System Building Blocks: from service delivery to governance. I was placed in the technical working group on cervical cancer screening and treatment of precancerous lesions, an area that strongly aligns with our work at Grounds for Health, especially our emphasis on HPV self-sampling for secondary prevention.

The second workshop was dedicated to translating discussions into action. Together with other stakeholders, including Women 4 Cancer, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), National Cervical Cancer Institute, Social Health Authority, Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, CureCervicalCancer among others; we crafted a detailed cervical cancer elimination action plan, outlining major activities, timelines, and responsibilities. I contributed to designing strategies to scale HPV DNA testing, improve health worker training and retention, and integrate self-sampling into primary health care systems.

I was particularly vocal on the importance of decentralizing screening services, strengthening sample referral networks, and improving budgetary prioritization for cervical cancer interventions at the county level. These inputs were grounded in our grassroots experiences, where we witness firsthand how barriers like stigma, stock-outs, and poor follow-up prevent women from accessing lifesaving services.

Being part of this strategic process reaffirmed the power of collaboration between government and implementing partners. As we look forward to the national launch in November 2025, I am proud that our efforts at Grounds for Health are informing policy at the highest levels.

Kenya’s path to cervical cancer elimination is ambitious but achievable. With committed stakeholders, strong leadership, and continued investment, we can make this vision a reality.

The post A seat at the table: Bringing community insights to Kenya’s National Health Policy first appeared on Grounds for Health.

It wasn’t the first time I found myself juggling my own serious health issues while working to improve access to health care for other women. I’ve been passionate about public health, and reproductive health specifically, since I was a young girl; Our Bodies, Ourselves was both my well-worn reference and bible as a young woman. At the time of my HPV scare, I had recently worked to help open the first free-standing, midwife-owned and operated birth center in Massachusetts and had ensured that families receiving public health care could access our services – but I wasn’t entirely well. I was in my early 40s and in the midst of major life upheavals.  I was getting a divorce, selling my family’s home, and raising three children (two of whom were about to graduate from high school and a third in elementary school); all in the wake of a necessary medical leave from a beloved job due to disability caused by rheumatoid arthritis.

Life was messy; filled to the brim with painful losses, sober reckonings and yet full of new possibilities – the “full catastrophe” you might say – it was a messy joy.

Writing to you now – the worrisome cells gone from my body and appreciating calmer life seas in overall good health –  I’ve been coordinating the shipment of thousands of HPV test kits to Kenya and Ethiopia so that our field teams can proceed with their HPV screen and treat programs. I joined Grounds for Health as the Operations and Finance Associate this past winter and while I’m new to the team, I am deeply aligned with my colleagues who dedicate so much effort and heart to helping women and families live healthy lives in coffee growing communities.  

Katie and her three sons.

Any friend of Grounds for Health knows that while the outlook is good for most women who receive timely health care, cervical cancer remains a major cause of mortality in less-resourced countries, especially in rural farming communities. So it was an easy lift when this past Mother’s Day, I became a recurring donor of this modest yet mighty organization I now have the privilege of working for. 

It’s astounding what our nimble and dedicated team accomplishes; I am continually learning how we make an impact in global efforts to eradicate cervical cancer. 

For $10 a month, I am helping women across an ocean receive essential, potentially life-saving health care, care that I have been so fortunate to receive myself. 

Attending to life is a labor of love – we come and go from this world dependent on each other – life is made all the more rich when we embrace the enormous gift and responsibility of taking care of one another. So I send a wholehearted thank you to my colleagues at Grounds for Health for the innovative work they’ve been doing in the world since 1996 and invite you, dear reader, to consider joining the web of care that connects us all by becoming a recurring donor. 

Our collective outlook is good in each other’s embrace.

Written by Katie Parsley 

The post On Life’s Messy Joys and Becoming a Recurring Donor first appeared on Grounds for Health.

First thing upon landing in Ethiopia, I went to Cherish Cafe, owned by Sara, Dagmawi’s wife, for a delicious and much-needed coffee and breakfast. I still marvel at the serendipity of finding a Program Director with a career in public health, laboratory research and coffee! 

From Addis I traveled to Hawassa, where I was greeted by our Ethiopia team and Heather, our Strategic Partnerships Manager. This was her first time visiting our programs in the field and she was excited to meet our clinical team.

The next day, we drove to Shebedino, splitting up between three sites where women were being screened. The team had trained health educators and administrators ahead of time to talk to village leaders and women to spread the word about screening dates. I went to Dila Aferafa Health Post with Ashenafi, where over 30 women were waiting by 9:30 am, gathering under a big tree with their neighbors and children to await screening. 

Women gather under a tree with their neighbors and children to await screening.

I don’t speak the local language (Sidamiya), but I could tell right away there was some resistance to screening. Ashenafi explained that some women said, “But I feel healthy, I’m fine, I don’t need screening,” and I watched a familiar scene play out. First, health administrators and local leaders stepped in to explain the importance of prevention — how the virus doesn’t cause any symptoms, but if it’s present, it can develop into cancer, which is harder to treat. More significantly, a few, brave women went behind the curtain and got screened. Then, they came back outside and explained the ease and simplicity of the procedure to others. By 11 am, enough women were waiting that we had to add a third curtain to keep up with patient flow.

The first brave woman to be tested!

Meanwhile, Heather and Mesfin had an inspiring day at their site, Sadeka Health Post. Marta, a coffee farmer in this village had heard about the health screenings and knew it was an opportunity not to be missed (see below). She went door to door with her neighbors and proudly recruited 180 women to the health post for screening. This story reminds me again of how empowered women are when they have access to care. 

Kyle, Marta (a coffee farmer), and Heather outside of the health post.

After 3 days of screening and spending time with the team in Ethiopia, it was on to Kenya. Like in Ethiopia, the team had arranged screening at several health centers and outposts. On arrival, the nurse I spoke with said “When we had to do an exam, there was a lot of fear. With this HPV testing, there is so much less fear and the women are so happy.”

Photo of the nurse who said “There is so much less fear” while educating patients on how to insert the test swab.

We visited with community health promoters who were so proud of their role and work. I was amazed at their initiative and advocacy. At Kiganjo Health Center, the health promoters had gone to the police academy down the road to recruit female officers. At Karatina Subcounty Hospital, the promoters walked to the local market to recruit and screen women in a small building amidst fruits, vegetables and grains.  

Health promotors recruiting women in the market for screening.

Two health promoters from Kiganjo.

In both countries, I visited the labs where our staff tests patient samples for analysis. This aspect of our programs is new since we adopted HPV testing. It adds a larger component of quality assurance and logistics to our program, but it also presents an opportunity: to strengthen the local health systems and improve the quality of testing in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Here is Mary, the lab director at Karatina, posing with the HPV test kits we brought. She was as thrilled as we were to add 1,000 more to the freezer to analyze women’s samples!

It was a whirlwind week and we screened 1,195 women, spent quality time together as a team, and even fit in time for delicious coffee (in Ethiopia) and chai (in Kenya) and a few wildlife sightings.

Our team enjoyed delicious pineapples from the market after a day of screening.

In the two weeks since I’ve returned to the US, the lab teams have already run all the samples, and health workers have communicated the results to the women. They started bringing women with positive results to the health posts for treatment, which is hard and important work. Screening is only the first part of the equation – we can’t prevent cervical cancer unless we treat the women who screen positive. And, since these women have to be found and brought back to the health center for treatment, there’s always a chance for loss-to-follow-up. 

Over the past three years, our teams have achieved an 89% treatment and referral rate with HPV testing, but we take nothing for granted. Every woman we see is a woman with a family, a community, and a full life ahead of her, and our mission is to make sure she goes through the entire process of care- from screening to treatment. 

Thank you for following along!

The post Updates from our ED: January in the field first appeared on Grounds for Health.

To kick off the campaign, we spoke with CJ Yang, an advocate of our work in her role at Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Inc. Swiss Water has generously committed to supporting our November campaign, and we invite you to learn more about how they’ve integrated Grounds for Health into their marketing and social responsibility efforts. In addition to being a sustaining major donor, the Swiss Water employees raised over $2,500 in the past year through their Grounds for Health coffee program, benefiting an additional 46 women at origin with cervical cancer prevention services.

What is your role at Swiss Water & how long have you been involved in the coffee industry?

I’ve been with Swiss Water for six years and in the coffee industry for about 12 years. At Swiss Water, my role is Senior Customer Relationship Specialist, so it involves working with customers, roasters, and importers in specialty coffee. We’re based in Delta, Canada, but we have customers globally and I work with international accounts to have Swiss Water easily available globally. 

Another project that I work very closely with is called the Small Batch Series. So this is a cross collaboration within our sales team, green buying team and marketing team. We highlight really delicious coffee that comes with a lot of traceability and coffees that can help support community projects. 

Tell me what your connection to our work at Grounds for Health has been?

Swiss Water has been actively advocating for Grounds for Health for many years by raising awareness externally to our customers, but also internally. When I joined Swiss Water, that’s how I first found out about Grounds for Health. I then had the opportunity to lead the Grounds for Health coffee program at Swiss Water, where we sell coffee to our staff to help raise funds. 100% of the money raised from the Grounds for Health coffee that we sell to our team is donated.

Tell me about some of the success you have seen in the partnership throughout your time in your role. 

The Grounds for Health coffee program has been around with our company even before I started leading the project, but one of the things that I really wanted to work on was the packaging and the labeling of the coffee. So I designed it and then put a lot more coffee information on the packaging and traceability information, with Grounds for Health information on top. So this worked really well because not only were staff buying it for their own consumption at home, but they were excited to give it as gifts during the holidays, or even throughout the year. It gives more opportunity for people to ask, “Oh, what’s Grounds for Health?” The coffee is sourced by our green team and we have two offerings, the regular coffee or the decaf and the initiative goes on all year round. 

What do you see as some of the benefits of the Grounds for Health and Swiss water partnership? 

Our partnership with Grounds for Health allows Swiss Water to strengthen our relationship and give back to coffee growing communities, which is really important to us. And, on the other hand, we have an amazing platform and wide reach of customers, so we are able to use this to support Grounds for Health by amplifying and raising awareness about cervical cancer prevention. For us, this partnership is very important to support the growers and coffee growing communities.

Supporting Grounds for Health is not just about the immediate healthcare interventions, it’s also about building sustainable health care, care for those at origin in coffee communities. Grounds for Health is training local health care providers and really empowering them to continue providing cervical cancer prevention service so that they can also continue independently as well.

What do you wish others knew about the work we do?

I wish others knew the importance of healthcare in the coffee supply chain. Grounds for Health supports the Sustainable Development Goals in health and wellbeing and improves health outcomes for women in coffee growing regions. This contributes to stronger and more resilient communities in the long term. 

Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes, our marketing team also does bigger projects like the Grounds for Health Week and other things, and then the part I’m involved in is the Grounds for Health coffee. I just wanted to shout out to the amazing work our marketing team does as well throughout the whole year!

Join Swiss Water and our other incredible donors and partners by making a gift today. 

Donate today

The post Swiss Water inspires Canada Coffee Companies to Give this November first appeared on Grounds for Health.

This was the largest number of test kits used in one week and would critically test our model for scale. 

Patrick Mbugua, Clinical Specialist, and Evah Muendo, Kenya Program Coordinator, stand outside of the Kiganjo Health Center, one of the many collection sites.

Evah Muendo, our Kenya Program Coordinator, was skeptical at first, “When we first learnt that we had 2,000 kits to do HPV self sampling in one week, we thought it was a pipe dream. Nonetheless, being the dreamers we are in endless possibilities, we sat down with Patrick, the clinical specialist, brainstormed and planned on how to reach so many women within a short time. We then got the County health department to support the plan and share it with our supported facilities.”

To implement a high-volume campaign with our strong commitment to quality takes a village. We had 12 facilities and hospitals registered to collect the samples, 22 outreach sites where women were mobilized, and facilitation from 30 nurses and 32 community health promoters. Outreach sites in rural areas are strategically placed where women gather—such as churches, pharmacies, coffee farms, tea plantations, health centers, shopping centers and parks. 

It is a vast contrast to health systems in high-income countries like the United States, where women’s healthcare is often provided in isolation. In Kenya, cervical cancer prevention is a community-led initiative. Everyone involved in this campaign has an important role, from communication to advocacy to education. Women leave knowing about HPV and cervical cancer and feel empowered to protect their health and their families. They share with young girls in their communities the importance of vaccination. 

The ripple effect is seen almost immediately. 

WHY SELF-SAMPLING?

HPV self-sampling is emerging as a preferred method for cervical cancer prevention in low-resource settings due to its efficacy and effectiveness. In many underserved areas, healthcare infrastructure is limited, and routine screening programs can be challenging to implement. 

Self-sampling allows individuals to collect samples in any location – both public and private, including churches, homes and even public markets. This approach increases participation rates, as it eliminates barriers such as transportation, time, and stigma often associated with traditional screening methods.

Moreover, it can significantly improve early detection rates in settings where conventional Pap smear programs are underutilized. The simplicity and reliability of the test empower individuals to take control of their own health, leading to earlier identification of high-risk HPV strains that could develop into cervical cancer.

CHALLENGES

The biggest challenge of screening this many women at scale is the follow-up, particularly for those who test positive for HPV and need to come back for treatment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the importance of ensuring that individuals who test positive for high-risk HPV strains receive appropriate follow-up care. This includes confirmatory testing and timely treatment, if necessary.

The WHO’s target is to achieve a 70% coverage rate for screening and a 90% treatment rate. This means that 70% of eligible women should be screened with high-quality methods, and 90% of those with positive results should receive effective treatment. 

OUR RESULTS

As of today, 10 weeks have passed since the week-long campaign and we are well on our way to meeting the WHO targets. Out of 1,813 women tested, 26.1% tested positive and of those positive, 82.2% returned to be screened by visual inspection and 78% of those women were provided treatment.

“I am always amazed by the capacity of community health workers to facilitate mobilization and ensure follow-up for treatment for screening with self-sampling. They are literally the backbone of our ability to meet the WHO standard”, said Dagmawi Iyasu, our Africa Program Manager.

Community Health Promoters and nurses stand outside of a church, where samples were collected in Nyeri County.

This is a huge milestone and proof that our systems are ready to screen a high volume of women in multiple locations, many times a year.

As follow-up and treatment rates continue to rise with time, our team is proud of what’s been accomplished. There are many lessons learned to share with the global health community and to increase the efficiency of our programs in Ethiopia and Kenya.

Kyle Engelman, who became Executive Director earlier this year reflects on this accomplishment,

“We still have so much to learn about the best model for delivering HPV testing to women around the world – or rather, the best models, since surely we will have to adapt for different geographies, cultures, and contexts. I am so proud of GfH and the Kenya team for their dedicated, insightful, and intelligent work bringing health services to women!”

The post Updates from Kenya: We screened a record number of women in one week! first appeared on Grounds for Health.

Women are the backbone of the coffee industry and of climate change adaptation.

Recently, I’ve been asked by partners within the specialty coffee industry to articulate how women’s health is central to the sustainability goals of the industry. In a world where there are so many critical issues facing the future of our planet and our people, it can be difficult to know where to invest resources and what is going to make the biggest impact. 

Here are some of the things we know:

• 1 in 10 children worldwide is engaged in child labor. These numbers are 3x higher in rural areas and ¾ of the labor is agricultural work.
• Around the world, 1.8 billion people live in homes with no water supply on their property and 1.4 million lives are lost annually due to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene. 
• 4 in 5 people displaced by climate change are women and girls

What we also know, though, is that we can’t solve these issues without healthy women.

• In a mixed methods study done by Harvard researchers, maternal death was a direct contributor to increased likelihood that children would drop out of school and engage in higher levels of household labor and child labor (2015). The presence of women and mothers safeguards children’s health and education and contributes economically to the household so that children can be afforded opportunities.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa 80% of household water collection falls on women, and globally women spend 200 million hours collecting water each day. Women, when included in the design and implementation of water access and sanitation programs, increase their likelihood of success (World Bank, 2024). They protect the water for their families and communities. 
• Across 72 countries, a one-point increase in women’s political empowerment index – based on civil liberties, freedom of discussion, and political participation – led to a 12% decrease in carbon emissions (Sustainable Development Journal, 2019). Women with agency make environmentally-conscious decisions on behalf of their communities and the planet.
• A McKinsey Report from this year showed that women spend 25% more of their life in poor health than men. If we reduced this health gap by giving women better access to health services and effective treatments, it would boost the global economy $1 trillion annually by 2040. Improving women’s health has enormous and far-reaching economic benefits.

This is why we do the work we do. A healthy woman leads to a ripple effect: she is a direct contributor to healthy children, healthy communities, and a healthy planet. And cervical cancer is one of the diseases that prevents women from living healthy, productive lives. It is the leading cause of preventable, premature cancer deaths in low and middle income countries. 

Let me say it again: cervical cancer deaths are preventable and premature, and they are occurring in the countries where the majority of the world’s coffee is grown.

Our programs provide women access to cervical cancer screening and treatment, which has been designated by the WHO as a “best buy intervention” because it has an immediate return on investment. Increasingly, our global partners and those in the specialty coffee industry recognize the value in our work not just for the women who grow coffee but for the ripple effect of a healthy woman. 

Thanks to our partnership with Montana Coffee Traders, we applied to become a 1% for the Planet environmental partner, and were accepted because they know – and value – that women’s reproductive health is a proven climate adaptation strategy.

Partners like Ogawa Coffee support our work because we contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, specifically goal 3.4 and 5.6, to reduce premature mortality by 30% and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health. And our Anchor and Major Donors sustain their gifts over 3-5 years so we can plan high-quality interventions for years to come. 

In a time of urgent social justice and climate concerns, I take great hope from the work we do, the women we see, and the partners who invest in women’s health. Because it’s not just the women who benefit – it’s everyone.

Kyle Engelman, Executive Director

The post Let’s talk about women and sustainability first appeared on Grounds for Health.

Go Doc Go currently provides cervical cancer prevention services, including equipment and training, through partnerships and short-term technical assistance in Senegal, Ethiopia, Gambia and Haiti. Grounds for Health’s programs include community-based staff and partnerships to support training, community education, and ongoing screening and treatment in Ethiopia and Kenya.

This March, Grounds for Health partnered with Go Doc Go and arranged a 3-day Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure (LEEP) Training for physicians in five hospitals in Ethiopia. After the training, Go Doc Go donated two LEEP devices and two thermal ablation units to the hospitals and our team. This training and equipment donation will give more women with the highest risk forms of cervical pre-cancer access to advanced treatment. The value of these services cannot be overstated, as they are the most direct way to prevent cancer in rural Ethiopia. 

What is LEEP?

LEEP is a medical procedure used to prevent cervical cancer by removing abnormal cervical tissue. During a procedure, the abnormal tissue is removed using a thin wire loop that emits an electrical current. This loop acts as a precise cutting tool, allowing providers to excise the affected area with accuracy while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissue. 

During training, chicken flesh is often used to mimic the tissue of the cervix.

Abnormal tissue is typically noted during a cervical inspection, usually through VIA or following a positive HPV test. The five doctors who received this training will now be able to share their skills with other physicians in area hospitals.

LEEP training is important in East Africa for its potential to improve access to treatment, its integration into healthcare systems, and its impact on women’s health outcomes in the region. Our staff provided clinical support during the training – and their continued presence in Ethiopia will ensure that the skills, equipment, and referrals for women continue.

The physicians spoke highly of the experience and one doctor said, “Frankly speaking, the training was so interesting…I am sure we get good knowledge and skills better than we knew before. We are committed to prevent and manage precancerous cervical lesions that will save the lives of our innocent sisters and mothers who are in need. We had a good time and I miss you all.”

Another said, “I will transfer my skill to colleagues & I hope this training will help to improve the quality of the screening and management of premalignant lesions of the cervix in my hospital and the society at large if we are committed!”

Maggie Carpenter, the ED and Founder of Go Doc Go, said “It was an extremely successful trip and definitely the beginning of a great partnership to fight cervical cancer!” This collaboration represents a beacon of hope for countless women, offering them the chance for a healthier future.

The post GfH Partners with Go Doc Go in Ethiopia first appeared on Grounds for Health.

What does this mean for our organization?

CAC will raise funds for Grounds for Health at their Conference on November 14th, 2024 in Toronto. They will promote our work throughout the year, sharing our story with other coffee companies — and have added a beautiful write-up about our partnership here.

“Grounds for Health is an exemplary choice for our Charity of the Year due to their significant impact on improving the health of women in coffee-growing communities,” said Robert Carter, President, Coffee Association of Canada. “Grounds for Health’s concrete actions and compassionate dedication to women in coffee-producing countries has had real-life, lifesaving effects on one of the most marginalized groups in our industry.”

To be recognized at this level by a major association speaks to the importance of women’s health challenges at origin. We cannot wait to see the connections and community built by receiving this award.

Thank you, CAC, for believing in what we do!

The post Charity of the Year Award 2024 first appeared on Grounds for Health.