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Yochi Zakai

Washington, DC
Program Assistant
Sierra Student Coalition

While still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, Yochi Zakai struck up a business partnership with Zapatista farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. "I wanted the university to purchase fair trade coffee to sell on campus," he explains. "A few cafes in Ann Arbor were carrying fair trade coffee, but not many. I thought it would be great to develop a relationship with a community of coffee growers, and one of my professors suggested that we create a partnership with farmers in Chiapas."

Zakai hit on the idea of working with Zapatista farmers, best-known for their 1994 insurgency to reclaim indigenous lands in Chiapas. "We sent student delegations to Mexico to visit coffee cooperatives, meet with indigenous communities, and learn their history," he says modestly (Zakai led the delegations).

Back in the states he found an importer, put together a business plan, and in 2004 he launched Brewing Hope, a line of fair trade, organic, shade-grown coffee that he marketed to cafes in Ann Arbor. Zakai also raised money to bring farmers from Chiapas to speak at conferences in the Midwest. He turned over the management reins of Brewing Hope in December 2005 when he joined the Sierra Student Coalition (SSC) staff in Washington, D.C.

Zakai's involvement with the SSC began as a high school sophomore in Rockville, Maryland. As a senior he organized a recycling program for Montgomery County schools, putting together a report and calling a press conference where he presented it to the county council. The event garnered coverage on NPR's Morning Edition and on the FOX ten o'clock news.

An avid backpacker, Zakai recently summited Volcán Acatenago in Guatemala.

Published: January 31, 2007