Colombian sustainable brand Cordillera Chocolates will announce a significant update to its ATENEA sustainability program this week when more than 100 women cocoa farmers from the Urabá region in Antioquia graduate and complete their journey to become independent entrepreneurs.

Cordillera Chocolates (the B2B business of Grupo Nutersa’s Compañía Nacional de Chocolates) launched the program in July 2023 to generate a long-term transformation for women cocoa producers and enable a more just, thriving, equitable, and inclusive value chain.

"ATENEA: Women Who Transcend" is a sustainability initiative with a "higher purpose," says the brand—developing the capacities of rural cocoa-growing women to improve their quality of life and that of their families and communities while maintaining Colombia’s unique ecosystem.

A spokesperson for Cordillera Chocolates says: “We believe in the power of women to impact and generate a transformation on a larger scale. We believe that we're not impacting an individual when we impact women. We're impacting a family. We're impacting a community on a larger scale.”

In a little over a year, the structured program has achieved significant early wins, guiding women over three business modules:

Module 1: Entrepreneurship in the processing of chocolate products

This module was conceived by the SENA Emprende Rural Program, which has been carrying out training and accompaniment actions for entrepreneurship and rural employability. This course aims to strengthen entrepreneurs' competencies, knowledge, and skills to develop businesses derived from cocoa products.

Module 2: Financial Education for Rural Women

This module was devised as a determined and articulated commitment between Development International Desjardins (DID) and Cordillera Chocolates to provide business support to rural women in the country and identify opportunities to improve their finances and environment.

Module 3: Female Empowerment

Rural women play a decisive role in agricultural and rural development but often face challenges and barriers such as access to education, a decent income, and opportunities for personal, family, and professional development. This module emerges as a strategy to promote the reduction of gender inequality that is accentuated in some rural areas.

The ATENEA program set out to achieve the power to transform women and families, the community, the country, and the whole cocoa sector one chocolate chip at a time. Its success will be measured by the transformation of the women and their contribution to Colombian society and its cocoa industry.

The graduation ceremony for ATENEA: Women Who Transcend will be streamed live on Thursday, October 10, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm (Colombian time).

Related: Chocolate Cordillera joins call for cocoa sector to 'align for global action'