Read out about the work and impact of Bees Abroad projects in Rwanda
Read out about the work and impact of Bees Abroad projects in Rwanda
Supporting young people through sustainable beekeeping
Supporting young people through sustainable beekeeping
The Umutara Deaf School beekeeping project trains deaf children to be beekeepers. Our objective is to provide the children with skills and an income source. Having a skill and independent income gives the deaf youngsters confidence and status in their home village which is important for people with a disability in Rwanda.
Bees Abroad funded and continues to support the school apiary where students learn their bee keeping skills in their final two years at school. Those pupils that show a particular aptitude, we try to target about 4 pupils each year, are provided by the project with 3 beehives and a set of protective clothing to take back to their home village when they complete their schooling. Bees Abroad continues to support these youngsters with follow up training from the school trainer. After a year beekeeping at home, those that are succeeding are provided with additional hives and harvesting equipment.
We support each beekeeper for three years after graduation from school.
To date the project has sponsored ten students. Three more will be sponsored when they finish school this summer.
As always with beekeeping some beekeepers thrive and love it, some do OK, and some lose interest. We are happy to report most of the youngsters from the deaf school program are thriving with their beekeeping.
The project aims to establish a apiary at the Vocational Training Centre in Mwogo to train teachers and students and also train 8 young people with physical and learning disabilities, supported by a member of their family, from the linked Ubumwe Community Centre. Skills in beekeeping will be provided, with students at the Vocational Training Centre trained to make hives and tailor bee suits.
Bees Abroad is working with a UK NGO – Point Foundation, which has helped establish the Vocational Training Centre and Community Centre. Staff and students have been taught to make and manage Kenyan top bar hives and local Rwandan hives. Once the school apiary is fully established the young people will learning difficulties will be brought into the project, They will each be given hives and protective clothing and helped to develop their own apiary. The honey and wax from this will provide an income for these young people, hopefully for the rest of their lives.
The Vocational Training Centre has recently been developed and extended so the apiary will need to be moved to another site. Once this has been achieved the project will be ready to progress.
Bees Abroad
The Keepers
Symn Lane
Wotton-under-Edge
Gloucestershire
GL12 7BD, UK
Telephone: (+44) 07942 815753
Info@beesabroad.org.uk
