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HAMBURG, Germany – As 2025 draws to a close, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung celebrates the young women who are quietly transforming the landscapes of coffee-growing communities. Their work is a bold step toward the future.
Through climate-smart approaches, innovative cultivation methods, and active leadership in their farmer cooperatives, women are improving their own livelihoods, inspiring others and contributing to long-term transformation in their regions.
Through leadership, innovation, and resilience, these women are not only farming the land, but they are also shaping their communities. Their work sustains families, revives local economies, and builds a more inclusive, sustainable future for all.
This spirit of leadership extends beyond farming. In northern Germany, young women are creating democratic spaces where respect, dialogue, and critical thinking can take root – even in challenging environments.
The company carries their stories forward. With gratitude, with purpose, and with renewed commitment to elevating young voices in rural development.
Central America
“When women learn, communities thrive and futures are rewritten.”
Santi Marisol Juan Ramírez
Marisol’s journey shows how determination, skills, and opportunity can transform a family’s future. Motivated by the wish to create better prospects for her daughter, she used the financial training offered by HRNS to save her first $200, the starting point for opening a small shop and later purchasing her own 1.8-hectare coffee farm.
There, she now applies climate-resilient practices that strengthen her production and independence. Beyond her farm, Marisol leads the Parents’ Association in her community, ensuring that children have access to food and learning materials. Today, she is recognized as a role model, demonstrating how empowerment and education can help break generational cycles of poverty.
Indonesia
“It turns out my coffee trees weren’t bad – I just didn’t know how to care for them properly.” Mastaida Manik
When Mastaida joined HRNS training in 2022, her coffee farm was struggling. Instead of giving up, she took the lead and applied the new techniques she learned like pruning correctly, fertilizing at the right moment, and improving farm hygiene. Step by step, she transformed her fields. With only 500 well-managed trees, she now harvests more and better-quality coffee than she previously did with 1,500 trees. This increase in production has allowed her to invest in her children’s education and strengthen her family’s future.
Her farm has since become a learning site for others in her community. By sharing her experience and supporting her peers, she has grown into a confident leader, turning one struggling farm into an example of what knowledge, persistence, and initiative can achieve.
Northern Germany
“Young people are especially motivated to engage when their perspectives are taken seriously.”
Bettina Lorenz
In northern Germany, Bettina Lorenz leads “WarmUp! – Youth Culture for Democracy,” a program that fosters democratic engagement in a region where extremist attitudes are increasingly visible. Working in an environment that can be openly hostile to an open society, Bettina continues her work with resilience and conviction. By creating safe, low-threshold spaces in schools, she brings students, teachers, and principals into conversations that rarely happen otherwise.
Her approach shows young people the importance of respect, openness, and critical thinking. As Bettina explains, “Young people are especially motivated when their perspectives are taken seriously, creating these spaces for them is my greatest motivation.” Her dedication makes her a powerful role model, showing what courage and steadfastness can achieve.
Ethiopia
“Learning new ways to manage our coffee, a joint plan, and savings have changed our farm.”
Atalelech Tarekegn
Atalelech’s story shows how new knowledge can transform both productivity and household dynamics. By applying practices such as coffee rejuvenation, raised-bed drying, and producing vermicompost and seedlings in their nursery, she and her husband Habtamu increased their coffee yields from 8 to 20 quintals. After participating in the Gender Household Approach training, they now manage their farm and finances together, maintain shared savings, and provide a more varied diet for their children.
Today, Atalelech is a role model in the Urgessa group – demonstrating how learning, cooperation, and shared leadership can empower families and inspire their community.
Brazil
“We want to carry forward the legacy of our families. But we also want to innovate. We are ready.”
Geovana Peixoto
This young farmer stands out for her discipline, curiosity, and commitment to professional excellence.
She actively sought training, participated in technical events, pursued higher education, and gained hands-on experience in post-harvest work on several farms, choices that reflect a clear intention to grow through knowledge rather than circumstance. Although she once imagined leaving rural life, she ultimately embraced her family’s legacy with conviction, turning doubt into pride and inspiring other young people to see agriculture as a path of opportunity.
Through HRNS training, she strengthened her technical understanding of coffee farming and sustainability, deepened her confidence, and began establishing her own coffee plot while supporting her family’s farm.
What changed most this year is her sense of purpose: she now sees herself not only as a farmer, but as an emerging leader who shows that young people can innovate, thrive, and build meaningful futures while staying connected to the land.
Uganda
“Our advice as Gender Change Agents is respected in the community.”
Grace Kaweesi
Grace’s motivation comes from the peace and dignity she rebuilt within her own family after years of conflict, a transformation that now inspires her to support other households facing similar challenges. Through HRNS’s Gender and Household training, she strengthened both her technical coffee farming skills and her ability to engage her community, gaining access to services, training, and market information through her youth group. By applying improved practices such as mulching, timely fertilizer use, and better field management, she and her husband Samuel increased their yields from 5 to nearly 8 kilograms of dry coffee beans per tree and began planning their finances jointly.
What makes Grace’s story remarkable is how farm improvements and household collaboration progressed hand in hand: savings grew, school fees were secured, and tension at home gave way to teamwork. Today, she is widely respected in her community for her ability to rebuild her family, guide others, and demonstrate how gender equity and shared decision-making can transform both livelihoods and relationships.
Tanzania
“Without the project trainings, I’d be working the old way.”
Beatrice Robert
Beatrice, a young mother from Tanzania, joined the SAfA project with a small interest in livestock keeping and transformed it into a thriving business.
Through HRNS agronomy, livestock, and entrepreneurship training, she strengthened her technical and financial skills, enabling her to expand from one pig and one cow to a growing enterprise that now includes cows, pigs, and piglets. Her annual income has more than tripled this year, allowing her to purchase farmland and open a small boutique.
Beatrice’s story is special because she is challenging gender stereotypes in her community, proving that women can succeed and lead in livestock farming. She now mentors’ other young people, sharing her knowledge and encouraging them to diversify their income and build resilience. Her determination, business acumen, and commitment to continuous learning have made her a role model, showing how empowered youth can shift narratives and strengthen entire communities.
