Nice Coffee Co. is like any other business, except for the addition of one simple premise: people want to do good.

It seems obvious, but what if we... don’t know, let them?

You see social enterprises see people’s desire to do good as a consumer need; just like convenience, quality and style. So, what if we provide them with all that, and more? What if we coupled a brilliant product with life changing impact?”

I’d just been kicked out of the Royal Exchange (RE) for an altercation with a particularly obnoxious door. A friend had said a mate called ‘Andy G’ would drive us home. To my surprise this mate was in his fifties and to his surprise he was now getting the full brunt of my “harnessing a new wave of ethical consumerism” rant. 

Now, it turns out that Andy’s the founder of Red Frogs, a now multinational charity dedicated to supporting young people. As we pulled into college, Andy mentioned he’d put me in contact with a guy named Daniel Flynn, the founder and CEO of Thankyou: one of Australia’s most successful social enterprises. A few months later, at an hour thought obscenely early by any self-respecting college student, I got a phone call from Daniel Flynn, and Nice Coffee Co. was born.

I’ve stayed in contact with Andy and he has coached me and my two Co-founders through the difficult journey that is starting a social enterprise. Today Nice Coffee Co. supplies numerous offices and homes with premium coffee beans from around the world. Every morsel of profit then goes towards providing access to education in Kenya’s largest slum, Kibera.

Aerial shots characterise Kibera as a sea of rusting corrugated iron rooves, but it wasn’t until stepping under that rusted iron canopy that the reality of living in a slum became apparent. We passed through a maze of alleyways, barely a shoulder width wide, yet each brimmed with laughter and joy. Gun shots rang out from somewhere in the loins of the slum, but friends still bumped into one another, hands still clasped, and jokes were still exchanged. Slums are too often portrayed as desolate and devoid of hope, but they are not, they’re filled with humans living out the same human experience as all of us. All too often we forget that, and with it we lose a part of our own humanity.

We pushed deeper into the slum to arrive at our school and from its crumbling walls streamed an army of overjoyed kids. Everyday 400 students get access to education because of one simple premise; people want to do good.

Eight months on and we have rebuilt the entire school, introduced our student meal program and started awarding scholarships for secondary education. But now, schools are closed indefinitely and many fear that with 1 billion people living in slums around the world, we are on the cusp of a humanitarian disaster.

We often hear of the risk that COVID-19 poses with the close living conditions of college, but for comparison, Kibera slum has a density about 35 times that of Johns. That’s equivalent to having 11,000 students on the College grounds. Multiply that out over an area more than twice the size of the UQ campus and maybe you can understand how the 1 million people living in Kibera are sitting ducks for a sweeping infection.

Governments, aware of this have swiftly enforced strict lockdown measures. Overnight the slums employment level dropped from a low 50% to virtually zero. Families with no savings have been left to beg for food and many are going hungry. Around the world, we are hearing that harsh lock downs are not being coupled with adequate aid and it seems the result will be devastating.

At Nice Coffee we think that having an impact should be as easy as changing the coffee you drink – and now it is. Our school services the poorest families in the slum and thus our community has felt the full brunt of the lockdown. With our subscription you can support our emergency ration program while trying a different award-winning blend each month.

If you are interested, please contact the College or join now: www.nicecoffee.org/subscribe.