MILAN – On Thursday October 1, the whole celebrated the International Coffee Day, a day dedicated to one of the best-loved, most popular products on a global level: indeed, no less than two billion cups of coffee are drunk each day around the world.
This was the first initiative of this kind, promoted by the International Coffee Organization (ICO) and sustained by Oxfam which, to mark the occasion, is launching the fundraising campaign #Oxfam Coffee4Change.
Inspired by the Neapolitan custom of the “suspended coffee” – i.e. paying for a cup of coffee to be drunk by the next lucky stranger who enters the bar when we leave – the campaign allows people to donate the monetary equivalent of a cup of coffee to the farmers of the plantations and it is sustained by a Virtual Fundraising activity on the platform coffee4change.oxfam.com.
“The simple gesture of the suspended coffee,” said Roberto Barbieri, Director of Oxfam Italia “that we are promoting in honor of the International Coffee Day, will reinforce the link between consumers and producers, financing projects to sustain producers in the Southern part of the world”.
Expo Milano 2015 creates a special blend
A long “coffee parade” marked the beginning of International Coffee Day, departing from Piazza Italia and proceeding via the Coffee Cluster to the Open Plaza, and this was sealed with the creation of an “Expo” blend of coffee.
Sebastiao Salgado, the photographer who curated the exhibition in the Coffee Cluster, participated in the parade and took to the stage for an interview.
He was followed by Andrea Illy, CEO of Illy spa, Mario Cerutti, President of the Italian Coffee Commission and Roberio Silva, Executive Director of the International Coffee Organization (in the picture). The celebrations continued inside the Pavilions at Expo Milano 2015.
The short video above shows the atmosphere of the event at Expo 2015.
