On December 5, 2020, VADEMCO organized chocolate Tasting program which was held in Meleenta, Kpaai District Bong County. Over 250 cocoa farmers, their children and community leaders from the surrounding villages attended the occasion. The program was the result of success story writing and public by Bartalks on the wide website. The success story highlighted that 98% of smallholder cocoa farmers who produced cocoa as the product of chocolate have never tasting chocolate. This story touched the CEO of Microfertile, Mr. Romeo Duo in Collaboration with Nick Baskett of Bartalks provided several cartons of chocolate to VADEMCO to host this Chocolate tasting program. This was the first time in Liberia for such as great and colorful program.
In 2020 Bar talks and Liberian VADEMCO CEO Suliman V. Kamara built some rapport over a project VADEMCO was promoting. VADEMCO which is the implement partner to solidaridad helps farmers in the region and has plans to start adding value to cocoa beans various cocoa products in Liberia. Later in the year, Bartalks asked in one of its Newsletter editions if anyone wanted to support a project to put chocolate into the hands of farmers so that, for the first time, they would know, see and taste first hand, the product of their hard work.
A forward thinking and ingenious Mr. Romeo Dou, the founder of Microfertile in Cote d’Ivoire, a well-established company that produces a number of chocolate products for the region, immediately responded with his commitment to be involved.
True to his word, within a couple of weeks he had delivered a large quantity of chocolate bars and cocoa powder to Solidaridad offices in Abidjan to be delivered to VADEMCO in Liberia But it was challenging to deliver
However, Bartalks purchased just under 200 bars of chocolate from a local Liberian specialty chocolate company just in time before Christmas. VADEMCO pulled off a miraculous organization of multiple villages to come together in a tasting session, putting on food, education and talks, and of course the chocolate! Solidarid meanwhile, provided some the logistics-transportation while VADEMCO provided photography and filming – something we are extremely grateful for. A short video was made showing the event. VADEMCO was able to put this together in time for Christmas, which is of course, the time of year for giving and reflection.
