Beekeeping as a tool for economic empowerment of village women & their youths

The challenge is that almost all (over 95%) village women (housewives ) and their youths (sons and daughters ) do not have any form(s) of income but rely on their husbands for their needs which are mostly not met.After demise of the husbands , the widows are left to fend for themselves .Their children (mostly youths ) as being unemployed and as a result that they used to help their deceased fathers on their farms become diverstated and some engage themselves in various ill vices (stealing, drug addiction .kidnappings , etc).

The solution is to develop a project that will involve them as family members to develop their incomes.

The approach is geared towards introducing beekeeping and to support them with some agricultural inputs that will help them uplift their crop productions.

Part of the project is to train them in modern beekeeping crop farming   technologies .They will be developed to serve as farmers extension volunteers that will have responsibilities of transferring same knowledge gained to their neighboring communities .

The Beekeeping Extension Society will provide them markets for the honey and beeswax produced 

The direct target population will be over 800 .while the direct beneficiaries ho will serve in the first phase will be 150 farming familie (husbands , wives and their children .They will be selected in hayin agwai , zamfarawa and shika villages of Giwa local Government in Kaduna State of Nigeria. seventy percent (70% 0 will be women (housewives ).

presently they are underserved with lack of any form of economic activity(ies) engagements from either their husbands and or the government .

We intend to have few of their husbands as part of the project because without this approach , some of the husbands may refuse to allow their wives to participate  

We also will introduce the use of briquette  as alternative source  of wood that will reduce cutting down of trees for firewoods 

The Beekeeping Extension Society is a small Beekeeping volunteer NGO registered in 2002 and based in Kaduna State in Nigeria.

Over the years we have received numerous funding and consultancies (over $200,000) for Beekeeping development ,including the following Telefood under FAO, 1% Fund for development, under United nations , Embassies of USA, Canada, Australia and France here in Nigeria .

We have also served as Beekeeping consultants / volunteers in Ghana, Cameroon, Liberia and South Sudan.

We have and are collaborating with the following International organizations:

- Winrock International Nigeria

- Bees Abroad UK Charity 

- Partners for development Nigeria

For our individual educational capacities, we have Diplomas in general Agriculture, Bachelors of Sciences in Biochemistry, Diploma in Community Development and adult education, Graduate of physics and undergraduate in mathematics and Bachelors in Geography 

We are also beekeeping trainers for Bees Abroad UK Charity and we are also in-country volunteers for Winrock international 

We are also members of slow food International 

From 2002 year we have received grants from such embassies that include USA, Canada , France , Ireland , Australia, United Nations 1% development Funds and Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) .With these grants ,we established and we have served over 6,000 beekeepers in over 82 communities  with honey production equipment (hives , etc ) in Kaduna state alone .We have trained over 10,000 for and in collaborations with other International NGOs that Include among others such as Winrock International , Bees abroad UK charity and Partners for development .

For the parts of inclusion of crop farming , we collaborate with our nigerian partners include the Division of Agricultural Collages ,Adamawa Agricultural Enhancement Programme ans a host of others 

We  presently have a one time volunteer from Winrock International , Mr Chris Grace as our Investor .As a volunteer , we traveled with him throughout kaduna state under sponsorship of USAID and visited our beekeepers clusters 

The use of (1)  brequette for as safe and alternative for cutting down of trees that causes climate change iand (2) introduction of production of bee venom  will be our first aparoch to be included as a project 

Bees Abroad Uk charity and winrock can serve as our referees 

Our main aims are to :

- Engage women and youths into economic activities 

- to develop their knowledge in beekeeping and cop farming 

- To set them off to understand that they can with the limited resources within their reach develop themselves and others to understand that they can detach themselves from relying on their husbands and fathers for their daily needs and can survive even after the demise of their husbands and fathers 

To expose the different communities that practice different religions on importance of peaceful coexistence