A Case Study of a Cluster of Three Diverse Poverty Relief Projects and Their Local Lead NGO in Kasese, Western Uganda
Bees Abroad presented a paper on Monday 9 September at Apimondia, the bi-annual international beekeeping conference, held in Montreal, Canada. Jane Ridler described a study which was designed to test an approach to establishing participant led outcomes for beekeeping projects.
Too many beekeeping projects are reported to have failed. Success is difficult to assess, and objective measurements can be simplistic. Success is best defined by the participants themselves.
This paper presents a methodology for establishing success criteria of poverty relief beekeeping projects which could be used as a template for projects in other localities.
Jane described a case study of a beekeeping course in Western Uganda attended by three diverse poverty relief projects, how they defined success and how measurements might be made.
The methodology used was a group interview, conducted in a discursive classroom environment and incorporated into a 2-day residential beekeeping course. There were three representatives from each of three beekeeping projects, initiated by Bees Abroad. One was a women’s group, another a youth development group and the third a group of already established beekeepers benefiting from further development. A fourth group, with more of an overview, were the representatives from our delivery partner NGO, LIDEFO. The twelve participants represented a social, gender, age and educational cross section. All discussions were conducted both in English and the local language. The groups established their aims and objectives, differing in detail, but with many similarities. They then described ways that they, or others, could assess the achievement of each criterion, or if it was impractical or immeasurable.
From the study we suggest that a combination of quantitative and qualitative measurements that are defined by and can be measured by the participants themselves would best achieve the assessment of the success of a project. Examples of the former could be numbers/condition of hives or quantity of honey/products sold. One or more would be chosen and recorded on report sheets by the local leaders or beekeepers themselves, as appropriate. The interpretive measures of success, which really matter to people- whether children can be sent to school, or health improved, can only be achieved by questioning and observation of change in living conditions. A simple survey sheet could be produced, generated at the start of the specific project, for a suitable sample of participants.
Jane said, “our projects will be more successful if they are designed with a good understanding of what the participants want”. Bees Abroad has gathered many good stories about the impact of its projects on the lives of participants as projects progress. However, it expects that finding out what participants want before projects start and designing projects accordingly will be an improvement. An essential part of the changes Bees Abroad plans to make will be to ask project participants to measure and report on their progress against the criteria they have selected.
The study found that ‘getting lots of honey’ and ‘becoming trained’ were among the first two outcomes suggested. After that came love, unity and co-operation, job opportunities, crop pollination and the environmental importance of bees. Typically, honey is sold to pay for education, medicines and household essentials.
The study was carried out over two short days in February 2019 in Kasese, Western Uganda. We thank the representatives from the Kiringa United Beekeepers, the Kinyamaseke Youth in Development, the Women Resource Centre for Community Development and the Liberty Development Foundation who gave their time to support Bees Abroad in this study.
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