Help small cocoa farmers make a living

Hi folks, in our last update we shared our gratitude with every person who helped us so far and first achievement in opening day of the handicraft center and chocolate contest. Following the launch of the handicraft center, we welcomed women from several islands for weeks of training and giving them an opportunity to sell their products, share ther know-how and tied the links between them and ACTIV loking forward together. It has been enabled thanks to a canadian fund and will last until the end of March. This is for us the time to wish you all a happy new year, full of sharing and humanity.

 

December has been a very busy month with the finishing of our new office space and relocation of the material. we will now transform the former office space into a nice shop for the visitors. The job will start as everyone returns from a well deserved end of the year break by mid of January. By the end of the month we should have the power connection and run the big machines for first batch testing by mid of February.

 

On the latest news, we have now received our tempering and moulding machine. Working the magics with our local electrician, we also managed to test it even though we do not have a tri-phase connection yet. We also received our packaging and quite frankly, it is stuning, colourful and very islandish, very much Vanuatuan. We hope you'll like it.

 

Working with the cocoa growers, we supported the group from Epi island in building their brand new storage shed. It was funded by the French embassy through a small grant program we applied for. As I am writting these lines, the building job is near completion, being slightly delayed with the Christmas break and transport issues to deliver the material on Epi. These are typical for Vanuatu. This is also what make daily life an adventure. On the cocoa growing side, we are still looking for a piece of ground where we will plant the 6000 threes growing in our nursery. They are now ready and we will follow a fewlwads?? to see if we can have a model plantation not far from the factory. This will be a plus for our visitors and we will have an opportunity to train and share the knowledge with the local growers.  

 

With power connection completed for a tentative date early February, we should start production in large scale by the end of February and will send you an update by then. Be well and take care.

 

The ACTIV - Aelan Chocolate Makers team.