🇪🇸 Video subtitulado al español. Dale click al icono de CC en la parte inferior derecha del video.

Help Arregoces come to Australia to bring his people's ancient sustainability message! 

Arregoces belongs to an indigenous group called the Kogi, an ancient mountain people from the Sierra Nevada in Colombia who have a rich ancestral culture and a deep connection to their environment. 

Last December we had the rare honour to be invited to the home of the Kogi to shoot a documentary and photography project focusing on the special way the Kogi grow wild coffee.

As our guide for the trip and an excellent young ambassador for the Kogi message, Arregoces ended up being one of the doco's main characters, so we would like to invite him to the premiere and Kogi Coffee Australia launch event to be held in July 30 in Sydney. However, return plane tickets from Colombia and travel expenses do not come cheap! 

We think the Kogi people have a lot to teach us. Through centuries they have developed a deep environmental knowledge through their close communication with nature. They see themselves as the first children of The Mother and the elder brothers of humanity, and as such they believe they have a responsibility to be the guardians of the Earth.

They have remained more or less isolated from the rest of the world for more than 500 years, since before the Spanish arrived in Colombia. However, in recent decades they have seen how their sacred sites, which hold immense spiritual as well as environmental importance, have been invaded by settlers, developers and mining interests. On top of that, they are feeling the effects of the changing climate. 

This has motivated the Kogi to try to communicate more with the world in order to let the 'younger brother' know that we are all connected, that damaging a mountain is akin to hurting ourselves, and that we must live more sustainably. 

One of the ways they are reaching out is by sharing their unique wild coffee with the world. Their shade-grown, bird-friendly coffee trees live naturally among the native species of the rainforest while Kogi elders, known as mamos, follow the harvesting process by doing important spiritual work. This makes it probably one of the purest, most sustainable in the planet. 

By exporting their beans, the Kogi hope to reach out to people over the world. They call this concept 'messenger coffee'. They also plan to use profits from the sale of the green beans to buy back some of their sacred sites. 

Arregoces became our good mate and we have kept in touch. After meeting a few Aussies he's quite keen to come to Sydney to share knowledge with local aboriginal leaders and sustainability experts and learn about the Australian coffee industry he's heard so much about. 

About Us

We are Lorenzo and Diana, a married Colombian-Australian couple who co-founded Kogi Coffee in Australia, which recently started to sell freshly roasted wild coffee online.  

We became involved with the Kogi through Lorenzo's father, who as an anthropologist has been working with them for around 30 years. When we heard the Kogi were growing great coffee, we thought we could help connect them with the Australian market and were lucky to get support from Aussie friends with fantastic filmmaking and photography credits. 

A special thank you to Kleber Estorilio for putting together our Crowdfunding video and to Lashtari & Shiram for the spanish subtitling.

You can follow Kleber's work on www.digitalkmedia.com

UPDATE 27.07.2016 -  Arregoces is here! And he is having a great time. So far he attended to the Aroma Festival where he had the chance to taste coffees from around the world while overlooking the Sydney Harbour and during the week we've giving him a tour of the coffee industry as well as of some of Sydney best scenic spots.

He also took a great opportunity of delivering first hand the Kogi message on SBS Radio and did a tremendous job!  You can listen to the interview in spanish here: http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/spanish/es/content/el-mensaje-del-pueblo-kogi-sus-hermanos-menores-traves-de-su-cafe?language=es

Arregoces input has also been crucial on the final touches of the short doco that will be premiering this upcoming Saturday 30th of July at the Kogi Coffee launch + Photo Exhibition. All pledges over $100 made by Friday 29th will receive an invitation with a +1 to the event !

We've got heaps of exciting new Rewards this week! Arregoces brought from the Sierra Nevada original handwoven Mochilas to die for and Sandy McLennan has selected 4 high quality photographs made available exclusively to pledgers of our campaign. So we highly recommend checking out the Rewards section!

Even though we are not done yet with our crowdfuding campaing we went ahead and made this happen hoping to reach our target in a couple of weeks. We need your support now more than ever, so please Pledge Now and be part of this awesome project :). Thank you!

Liked our project but can't make a financial contribution? Don't worry, you can still help us by sharing our Pozible project & video, as well as spreading the word on Social Media ! 

UPDATE 8.08.2016  - On behalf of Arregocés and everyone at Kogi Coffee we want to express our immense gratitude to everyone who has contributed to bringing the Kogi message to Australia. Thank you! You rock! 

With less than 48 hours left in the campaign we're at 64% of our target, so every pledge matters! Please share this campaign with your friends or anyone who might be interested in helping this great project along and scoring some unique rewards. Remember, crowdfunding is all-or-nothing so if we don't hit the goal, the project doesn't receive any money. 

Having Arregocés in Sydney was very productive as he proved himself to be excelent at representing the Kogi culture and spreading their environmental message. We need all the support we can get in order to pay back for the trip, so thank you all for your invaluable support! 

Arregoces spreading the Kogi message

Connecting indigenous peoples

• $5250 - Land transport + return air tickets Santa Marta-Sydney 
• $330 - Visitor visa to Australia + visa expenses including potential trip to Bogota for "biometric requirements"
• $1000 - To cover food, transport and miscelaneous expenses for Arregoces' 2-week visit
• $329 - 5% Pozible fee

Total - $6909 

We have arranged accomodation for Arregoces therefore this will not be part of the expenses. 

If we go over our goal any left over funds will be invested on printing and framing photos for the Kogi Coffee launch and to cover other expenses attached to the event. 

Challenges include:

• Getting an Australian visa
• Finding a good deal on a ticket that doesn't exceed the figure we are raising funds for and that doesn't imply a longer trip for Arregoces. 
• Althought Arregoces has traveled overseas before, this is the first time he will be travelling on his own.