Jocelyne

My name is Jocelyne, and I came to the United States in 2006 with my family as asylum seekers from Burundi. We first lived in Manchester, New Hampshire before moving a couple of weeks later to Maine. Although I had considerable professional experience working as a Coordinator Assistant and Bookkeeper for UNHCR Burundi Agency (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and as a district manager for HealthNet TPO (Transcultural Psychosocial Organization), I could not find work relating to this experience in the United States. I instead began working at the Maine Medical Center as an interpreter, while also taking adult education classes to improve my English. In 2019, I graduated from the University of Southern Maine where I earned a degree in business management with a minor in accounting.

Since living in Portland, Maine, we have enjoyed this place based on the welcoming community, which has been a great support system for us. The supportive community here has been a motivator for us to become entrepreneurs. Both my and my husbands’ parents were in the coffee business, so coffee was always around us and provided for us growing up. In starting this business, we wanted to help coffee farmers get back on their feet and support the community we came from, and we have invested our time in.

My husband, Andre, and I co-own the business and are passionate about being role models to other immigrants who want to be entrepreneurs. We specifically want to be role models for those immigrant entrepreneurs who want to directly benefit struggling industries in the countries they originally came from.