Starting in September of last year the students of Salesio Gakuin High School in Yokohama have been supporting Seibo through means of regular charity coffee events featuring Malawian Coffee from the Warm Hearts Coffee Club. These events are intended to teach the students about Fair Trade, hone their Marketing skills and also help foster a spirit of volunteering.

These activities form part of a larger global movement launched by students at the Shibuya Junior & Senior High School in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward. The movement known as the ‘Shibuya Olympiad in Liberal Arts 2021’ or SOLA 2021 is run by high school students for high school students to increase global awareness of issues such as those the SDGs are committed to solving. The decision by Salesio Gakuin to promote Malawian Coffee was initially an SDGs initiative and embodies the movement’s motto to ‘Seek and Think for Oneself’.

The students at Salesion Gakuin took interest in Seibo’s coffee business as through corporate partnerships it enables 100% of all coffee sales in Japan to be used for charity in Malawi. Once they understood the underlying business model they could see how school partnerships could help change the lives of children in Malawi as well as increasing their awareness of issues related to SDGs!

We hope that our partnership with Salesio Gakuin and the SOLA 2021 movement continues to grow and prosper and want to thank all students & staff for their amazing support to date!