Part 1 - Images for Baker Institute Student Forum on Pakistan After the Floods

BAKER INSTITUTE STUDENT FORUM - NATURAL DISASTERS AND POLITICAL FALLOUT: THE CONSEQUENCES OF FLOODING IN PAKISTAN

Women Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming -
Plan Bee After the Floods

The entire beekeeping community in Gilgit, Hunza-Nagar, Ghizer, Chitral and Kalash Valley have been severely affected by Monsoon rains and floods that started in July and continued until September 2010. These floods resulted in massive infrastructural damage and property losses.

The devastating floods have left the beekeepers and their families homeless and without food and water. The production of honey has suffered disastrously. More than 33% of the beehives have perished in the torrential rains.

Plan Bee's Status Today

• 763 beehives damaged by the torrential rains.
• Women lost their jobs and beehives.
• Girls and boys cannot afford to come back to school.
• No honey production expected until end of March 2011.

The beekeepers are concerned about their capacity to produce the honey committed to fill the orders made by the hotels and grocery stores for 2011 and send their children back to quality schools.

In 2010, OWL Microfinance from Rice University provided $350 loans each to 12 beekeepers and provided a total of 48 beehives of which 30 were damaged by the floods.

Impact on 96 dependents sending 40 children to school.

We need your help to raise $3,180 to replace the 30 damaged beehives to help the OWL Microfinance from Rice University help their beekeepers replace the damaged beehives, kick-start their honey production and fill the orders committed for 2011.

Please Accept the Challenge: Donate to Plan Bee Today! Each $106 will buy a beehive

You CAN Help... Invest in women empowerment and change the world.

Why?
Plan Bee is a sustainable social business model which uses a multi-sector approach and promotes women as the means of their own economies.

Plan Bee Before the Floods

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 has trained and provided employment opportunities women
Plan Bee's Impact (July 2007-July 2010) 512 Women trained in honey bee farming. 30 Tons of honey produced and sold.
4,000 Dependents obtained better nutrition,




1,000 Girls and boys given access to quality school.
15% Increase in honey production.
32% Increase in women's household income.


Plan Bee is the Winner of the BBC/Newsweek World Challenge. 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 was 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.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Pakistan
• Gilgit
• Plan Bee
• Hashoo Foundation
• Baker Institute
• Cristal Montanez
• honey
• women empowerment
• beehives
• international
• forum
• meeting