PLAN BEE BEFORE THE FLOODS

Women Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming Plan Bee

In a country rocked by civil strife, Hashoo Foundation's Women's Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming Project Plan Bee was taking the sting out of unemployment rates in northern Pakistan. Plan Bee trained rural women in honey bee farming and created sustainable income generating jobs for women in this remote and isolated mountainous area. Plan Bee was transforming the lives of the women in Gilgit, Hunza-Negar, Ghizer, Chitral, and Kalash Valley. Plan Bee  trained and provided employment opportunities for women

Plan Bee's Impact  from July 2007 until the floods

                                         

   512 women trained in honey bee farming.
    30 tons of honey produced and sold.
4,000 dependents obtained better nutrition, health and education
1,000 girls and boys given access to quality school.
   15% increase in honey production.
   32% increase in women's household  income.

The project served as a sustainable social-business model which used a multi-sector approach and promoted women as the means of their own economies. Women who participated in the project held key leadership positions within the Honey Bee Associations. The women expressed they felt more socially integrated in a male-dominated enterprise, primarily because the project addressed the discrepancy between male and female beekeepers.

Plan Bee is based on a system of social barter, designed to promote social change. Hashoo Foundation bought the women beekeepers' honey above the market price and successfully linked them to the lucrative markets of ten 5-Star hotels and 90 grocery stores in Pakistan provided that the families agree to send their children to quality schools, have regular health check-ups and improve nutrition at home.

Hashoo Foundation's Women's Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming Project Plan Bee is a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Featured Commitment.

Plan Bee is the Winner of the BBC/Newsweek World Challenge 2008 Global Competition. World Challenge is a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level created in association with Shell in partnership with BBC World News and Newsweek. The competition honors innovators and entrepreneurs who create community-based solutions to some of the planet's biggest challenges from pollution and environmental degradation to hunger and poverty.

Click here to see the current status of Plan Bee after the devastated floods in Pakistan.