Lorna Young Foundation

Lorna Young Foundation

The Lorna Young Foundation (LYF) is an enterprising, small charity; achieving big results. We create innovative and entrepreneurial ventures that support smallholder producer organisations in developing countries to understand and access new markets; create their own branded products and gain more value from the supply chain.
We believe that smallholder producers in developing countries can lift themselves out of poverty by understanding the markets they supply and by securing more value from the supply-chain.
But we don’t stop at our work in developing countries.  We also run a number of social enterprise initiatives with groups and communities in the UK.

The Lorna Young Foundation created the Oromo Coffee Company with a group of Manchester-based refugees from the Oromia region of Ethiopia.The Oromo Coffee Company (OCC) is a unique social enterprise – the first ever community owned direct trading coffee business. The OCC sources Fair-trade certified coffee of an exceptional quality, directly from smallholder farmers in Ethiopia.

In 2009 we began working with young people from deprived neighbourhoods in West Yorkshire to set up similar community based ethical trading initiatives. The first group of young people, age 15 to 19 from Huddersfield, have now created their own social enterprise called the Young Ethical Pioneers. Over the past 18 months they have been learning all about enterprise and ethical trading, and via their social enterprise the Young Ethical Pioneers will help poor farmers reach markets in the UK, whilst at the same time creating opportunities for themselves.

Directors: Christina Longden / Ian Agnew 07944 979 721
Programme Co-ordinator: Laura Smith 07730 577 262
Email:   projectmanager@lyf.org.uk
Lorna Young Foundation
47 Lea Lane
Netherton
Huddersfield
HD4 7DP www.lyf.org.uk