SAC IXIM COMMUNITY

Sac Ixim, is a community of the San Cristobal Verapaz municipality, located in the East of the municipality. It takes around 50 minutes to get there from the main road.

Nowadays there are about 200 families, near of 1,100 inhabitants. The population devotes themselves to agriculture and the principal product is COFFEE. Families are poor and lack of resources and after the crisis of the coffee, the inhabitants have joined efforts to be able to survive, through the consortium of European companies such as Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG), Tchibo, Lavazza, Löfbergs Lila and Paulig. All of them form what is known as International Coffee Partners (ICP), who supported the initiative to produce coffees of high quality for the international markets like Starbucks, Paulig and others.

The coffee is milled in ecological beneficios, producing mainly SHB Fancy or Gourmet, highly prized by the middlemen or “coyotes”, who often try to obtain the coffee.

The families live in houses constructed with materials that they find in the place and normally the roofs are of flake or palm. In the community some basic services exist, like: drinkable water, school, community centers and electric power

The family joins to realize the works at home and agriculturists, the children and the girls also help their parents, but without neglecting the assistance to the school