- Bees4Women Project
Regenerate Africa has partnered with Happy Bee Honey, Action for Rural Women Empowerment, Hold Uganda, Private Natural Forest Owners and Women Beekeepers groups across 10 districts of Uganda to promote promote sustainable beekeeping to combat poverty, build resilient livelihoods and benefit biodiversity among women and girls in forest communities. Honey production is ideally suited to ensuring a positive environmental impact. Beekeeping generates an income without exerting pressure on land resources. Since the quality and quantity of honey production relies on availability of nectar from a range of flowering shrubs and trees (“more trees equal more bees”), it is in the interests of beekeepers to conserve and protect their environment. Regenerate Africa has partnered with Happy Bee Honey to provide environmental management training for the women beekeepers’ groups living in forest areas. This partnership has shown that as individuals‟ income from honey production increases, so, too, does their commitment to conserving their environment. After occasional beekeepers recognise the income earning potential of honey, they begin to take it more seriously as a business and, subsequently, pay attention to the management of natural resources. This has resulted into improved livelihoods for beekeeping families and sustainable community land management that facilitates further income generation. Improved beekeeping practice demands more bee forage plantation and conservation of the environment and provides an alternative income to the sale of forest products. Pollination by the bees is an environmental benefit.
The project which targets 5000 in 10 districts of Uganda. aims to create conservation awareness, empowering on the modern beekeeping methods, targeting women from rural areas and supporting them by creating local social enterprises based on bees’ byproducts. These households and women groups lack decision-making power if they are financially dependent on their husbands and categorised as poor and very poor will start or expand beekeeping and increase their annual household cash incomes by 50% through honey and beeswax sales by end of 3years. We will train trainers to deliver skills, build local capacity to support apiculture and enable producers to access markets
Project Partners: Regenerate Africa, Happy Bee Honey, Hold Uganda, Action for Rural Women Empowerment, Private Natural Forest Owners, Women Beekeepers
Location: Kyankwanzi, Kiboga, Buikwe, Buyende, Kamuli, Mityana, Mubende Districts