Native stingless bees women keepers

The problem to be solved is the critical danger of extinction of native stingless bee species. The proposed solution consists of the empowerment of the breeding and management of Stingless Native Bees (SNB), through a training program in meliponiculture, entrepreneurship and cooperativism for rural women heads of families, with a view to preserving these species and generating economic benefits for the sale of its derivative products. At the same time, the project will collect strategic information that will serve in the future for the design of an app, promote a digital market for native bee products, and help scientific studies. If our solution is scaled worldwide, positive impacts will be generated on the preservation of bees, on native flora, on the pollination of food plants and on the economy of communities.

In Colombia and also in all the world, 90% of the bees have disappeared, due to the use of pesticides, the deforestation of native flora caused by industrial agriculture and the general ignorance of the communities in the management and care of bees, reducing pollination of food crops and native flora. This affects the entire world population in terms of food, and doubly the peasant population due to the risk of losing their crops. The use of agrochemicals can be reduced through awareness campaigns led by the rural women of our project, the restoration of native flora can be given with the increase of native bees, through the conservation and reproduction of the same, the knowledge generated by the communities will promote the increase of economic activities that generate income to the 5% to 8% of world agricultural production are directly dependent on the action of pollinators, native bees pollinate 94% of native flora species and a large part of food crops in Colombia.

The proposed solution is a comprehensive empowerment strategy for 20 rural women heads of household as leaders in sustainable conservation processes of Native Stingless Bees (SNB). The program will initially train them with experiential education methodologies, in ancestral practices of breeding and management of SNB. Training will be given in technified beehive manufacturing technologies with easily available materials, beekeeping, honey production and other derivatives of SNB, leaving 2 beehives installed for each participating woman. Subsequently, there will be a training on entrepreneurship and cooperativism for economic promotion in their communities through meliponiculture. This program will last 2 months divided into 8 modules; Initially, documentation of the ecosystem and socio-economic characteristics of the population will be carried out, which will serve as input to measure the scope at the end of the project, the training program will be accompanied by experts in SNB, through audiovisual media and platforms Free digital photos, videos, infographics and other graphic inputs will be shared to support practical training so that training is of quality.

The target population is rural women, who represent 21% of the country's rural population, prioritizing women heads of households who have been victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, who are 22% of rural women in Colombia, and they are within 42.9% of the population living in poverty in the country, and also have low rates of participation in the labor market with a wide gap in employment by sex in rural areas. We will execute the project with rural women from municipalities in the eastern department of Antioquia, Colombia. This population has historically been neglected economically and socially, due to the limited management capacity of the country's local administrations, this has generated that the people who live in these rural areas, mostly live in conditions of poverty and their quality indexes of life are not optimal for their development.

Currently, we continue in contact with rural communities, where other training processes in beekeeping and meliponiculture have been implemented, and we have found that due to the socioeconomic characteristics of these communities and the difficulties brought about by the covid-19 pandemic, many people become find themselves in difficult economic situations, this gave us the possibility of articulating their needs with the problem of the danger of extinction of Stingless Native Bees (SNB) and contribute to the economic improvement of communities and the restoration of ecosystems in a sustainable way. and SNB management is a job that can be implemented by any population, especially rural women who are heads of households, this job that can be carried out in their own territories independently by themselves.

Training and empowering them in the management of SNB, the production of honey and other derivatives would significantly help to reduce the employment gap that these women have, broaden their knowledge, increase opportunities to improve their quality of life and generate new economies in the communities, while ecosystems benefit from increased pollination by bees, restoring native flora and increasing food crop harvests.

The problem of the danger of extinction of the Stingless Native Bees (SNB), can be solved promoting the breeding, conservation and reproduction of the same, through the empowerment of rural women; aligns itself with the challenge because it creates scalable economies for local communities, with the sale of products derived from SNBs and with the use of their new knowledge of meliponiculture, in the training of other people; the increase in SNB protects and restores ecosystems, improves pollination of native ecosystems and agriculture, regenerates and diversifies native species of flora, and improves food crops.

Our project is in the pilot stage because we have already tested it in a community of ex-combatants of the “FARC” part of the peace process in Colombia, in the municipality of Anorí, department of Antioquia, where we train 20 people in beekeeping and meliponiculture, breeding and management of apis and meliponas bees, creating a sustainable economic opportunity for the community with the sale of bee products, taking advantage of digital media so that the “Miel de la Montaña” project was successful. This successful experience gives us the basis to continue with the project in new communities, with a different target population and with the native bees of the territories where it will be developed, continuing with the line of empowering people in the importance of bees. , in this case the native ones, and the impact they have on the protection and sustainable restoration of ecosystems.

Our solution provides a new approach to help Stingless Native Bees (SNB), which are in danger of extinction, through comprehensive and experiential training processes for rural women. We provide them with elements to empower themselves in the meliponiculture, entrepreneurship and associativity, accompanied by an innovative kit with tools designed in the technology of manufacturing technified hives. increasing the population of SNB, the conservation, breeding, management and sustainable reproduction of the same; protection and restoration of ecosystems, while communities can access scalable economic opportunities. We hope that the offer in the market of products derived from SNBs, which is currently very limited, will expand, penetrating new national and international markets, we also hope to generate positive impacts, promoting job opportunities that increase the local economy and new models of entrepreneurship and associativity in rural communities.

This proposal has been serving 20 people in two municipalities of Antioquia; which are trained in beekeeping and meliponiculture, currently managing to have productive hives and improving their economy. In a year it intends to be serving 100 people, with the incursion of new areas for the installation of the Stingless Native Bees (SNB).

Taking into account the above and with the certainty that this project will transform many lives, in five years we hope to be with 600 rural women in the country, contributing to the improvement of the quality of life, contributing to the closing of economic gender gaps in our country and , additionally the protection, management and restoration of local ecosystems in a sustainable way.

To measure progress we have determined the following indicators:

# of technified hives installed / semester

# of people trained / quarter

# of communities intervened / year

Variation in the number of native flora / 5 years

To calculate them, we obtain the necessary inputs from the management reports of each of the implementations carried out in each community. In addition, with a group of experts (biologists, environmental engineers, forestry engineers, among others) we carry out initial characterizations (in flora and fauna) every time we start a project, in order to measure the variations over time, to determine the impacts generated in the ecosystem. On the other hand, in the future it is desired to scale the measurement capacity through the app, based on the information record of each community and the characterization of Stingless Native Bees (SNB) in all national and even international territories; allowing, based on georeferencing and according to the km traveled by each species, to simulate the estimated restoration of nearby ecosystems.

The team is made up of 6 people.

 Full time: 2

Part time: 3

Contractors: 1

We have a multidisciplinary work team made up of different professionals in areas such as Environment and Development, Meliponiculture, Social Work, Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, Sociology, Photography, Audiovisual Realization, Project Management, among others; who have different soft skills (Community work, assertive communication, entrepreneurship, among others) and techniques (Meliponiculture, environmental management, among others). Each member of the team has developed projects related to their training for more than 10 years, which has allowed them to gain a lot of experience in the work areas. In addition, we have experience in community projects in different territories of Colombia, Uruguay and Brazil.

In the case of Meliponiculture, we have experience in former FARC combatant communities, a process from which a nationally recognized brand of honey emerged (Miel de la Montaña). It should be noted that in the country knowledge about SNB is very limited, and within the team there is one of the great experts on the subject at the national and international level. In particular, a large part of the work team has families of rural origin, which facilitates the understanding of the environmental and social conditions of rural areas. In addition, some members of the team have experienced forced displacement. On the other hand, due to the personal interests of each of the team members, there are strong convictions of service to the community and care of the environment, which is why they have developed different social and environmental projects at work and personal level throughout of their lifes.

We believe that in diversity and inclusion, comprehensiveness is achieved, which leads to success. The work team is made up of 3 women and 3 men promoting equal employment opportunities. In addition, in our team and / or projects "no one will be discriminated on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry or national or ethnic origin." In addition, this project is aimed at promoting opportunities to prosper rural women where the poverty rate is high (42.9%), especially in families with mothers who are heads of household, which is equivalent to 22% of rural women in Colombia, due to the armed conflict and those who have a low participation in the labor market (40.6%), high informality (87.9%) and low wages; training them and developing skills that promote fair, equitable and well-paid job opportunities.

In addition to the 10,000 USD, our true interest is in promoting this project nationally and internationally to increase the Stingless Native Bees (SNB) population and prevent its extinction. We believe that the opportunity to expose our project in the media and at MIT conferences can be a platform to motivate other people to take care of the environment in a sustainable way through SNB, achieving our main objective.

On the other hand, we want to participate in all knowledge exchanges with other teams, allies, courses, among others; that allows us to increase our knowledge, ideas and generate new technologies to develop strategies that generate a greater impact on our ecosystem and communities.

We are too interested in receiving monitoring and evaluation support to build an impact measurement practice.

It would also be helpful for us to be able to access relevant resources in kind, such as software licenses and legal services from Solve Member and partner organizations.

To achieve the sustainability of the project we need advice and / or support in the areas: business model, legal or regulatory affairs, public relations, monitoring and evaluation, distribution of products and technology; as they point directly to the growth and strengthening of the business model. In addition, they are key areas for the project to scale not only at the community and ecosystem level, but also at the commercial and business level so that it lasts over time and can increase its scope each time.

On the other hand, our human capital is a solid team that has high experience in the technical issues of the proposal and financial aspects, however, we need knowledge in the other areas mentioned previously, to be able to carry out the project successfully.

We would like to partner with organizations, professors, MIT initiatives or members of Solve, since the organizations have commercial experience that would contribute to the strategic vision of the project. Teachers possess technical knowledge that can broaden the vision, scope and perspective of problem solving. MIT initiatives challenge us to innovate in our methodology and applied technology; and the members of MIT are promoters of diverse scenarios to approach our problems from different points of view, realities and contexts.

Our project is aimed at rural women victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, who are a vulnerable population that is made up especially of mothers who are heads of households, equivalent to 22% of rural women in Colombia and who have a low participation in the labor market. (40.6%), high informality (87.9%) and low wages. With our project we seek to promote the economic, financial and political inclusion of rural women, heads of households, victims of the armed conflict in Colombia; increasing their capacity for resilience and self-reliance.

Due to the methodology of our project, it can be replicated to any excluded community.

Our project develops capacities in rural women to promote smart and empowered communities, capable of developing sustainable activities that protect and restore ecosystems. This project is easy to replicate in any territory and community, due to its methodology, therefore, it could become a project applied worldwide, generating sustainable, inclusive communities and promoting accessible and equitable education as it is aimed mainly at vulnerable communities, rural, excluded or with low access to education.

Our project is aimed at rural women victims of the armed conflict in Colombia, who are a vulnerable population that is made up especially of mothers who are heads of households, equivalent to 22% of rural women in Colombia and who have a low participation in the labor market. (40.6%), high informality (87.9%) and low wages. Our project seeks to empower them and develop skills and capacities that promote a better future for them and their families, through the breeding and management of Stingless Native Bees (SNB), sustainable activities that at the same time protect and restore ecosystems.

We want to promote job opportunities based on sustainable activities that promote the well-being of individuals, families, communities and ecosystems. Additionally, we want to develop an app that manages Stingless Native Bees (SNB) population information and the production of derived products, to facilitate their commercialization; generating income and increasing the economy of the communities.

As well as allowing the characterization of SNBs worldwide for free, increasing the knowledge and care of these critically endangered species.