Beekeeping
With the support of the Canton of Ticino, the Municipality of Bioggio
and private supporters
A swarm showed up at Casa Mabawa during the month of June 2014: we thought it was a good omen!
After choosing the barrel of the stove and having been kicked out of it, it took up residence in one of the hives we immediately built.
If even before the genocide beekeeping was a highly developed activity, it is now successfully practiced throughout Rwanda.
The Pygmies-Batwas, in particular, have been practicing beekeeping in a rudimentary form for centuries, but in order to extract honey the traditional hive is damaged..
Our project aims to improve:
- Income from a simple but extremely profitable activity: honey, wax, propolis are
valuable products that do not remain unsold and have an excellent price/quality ratio.
- Nutrition through the consumption of honey, pollen and royal jelly: products that
perfectly integrate their poor diet.
- Social and professional integration through learning a trade that allows financial
independence.Today more than 50% of the cooperative is made up of women.
- Environment through the maintenance of forest biodiversity.
Diary of Lisa Bosia
Lisa kept a diary of her experience in Nyamyumba and the start of the beekeeping project.
Thus, in February 2015, the project began, spread over 2-3 years, with three groups of 22-24 people.Thanks to local support we were able to meet Dr. Jean de Dieu Barahira: one of the best Rwandan beekeepers who has taken responsibility for training beekeepers. For this purpose, the Cooperative "IKIMA" was founded by the participants of the first course.
The second course, completed in June 2016, brought the cooperative to 40 people.The third course provides for the selection of participants of the June 2017 course in February 2017, which will mark the end of the training project.
During the year 2016 the "honey house" was completed, where it is possible to process the harvested product according to the Government's directives.The cooperative received "l'agrément national de l'RCA" (Rwanda Coopérative Agency) which has already appeared in the "journal officiel".
This is a project that has been able to start thanks to an initial capital (funds raised during festamabawa on 28 March 2015).
The project was carried out with private and institutional funding including the Canton of Ticino.
