MAMA NYUKI BEEKEEPING PROJECT FOR INDEGIOUS WOMEN
MAMA NYUKI is a Swahili phrase which portrays a woman whose bees is her main means of survival and therefore understand how important bees are in her life and lives of others from economic, conservation to social perspectives.
In our program, Mama Nyuki means an individual woman in a group or the group itself of 5 to 11 indigenous women mainly from Maasai and Hadzabe communities who are supported in bee keeping business from which they get money to sustain their families, pay for school fees and run their lives while protecting the biodiversity.
We run a campaign called “Mimi ni Mama Nyuki” (I am a woman in bee business) we use other related campaign phrases like Nyuki ni Biashara, Tunza Nyuki, Tunza Mazingira which means bee is business, keep bees, keep environment.
MAMA NYUKI project is a package of bee keeping business for indigenous girls and women which includes;
Relevant training modules
WHY WE CHOOSE TO EMPOWER INDIGINIOUS WOMEN
Women in patriarchal Maasai and Hadzabe communities are especially disadvantaged. They have no right to own property or livestock, have very limited access to education, and lack the power to make decisions about their own lives (for example, girls are often forced into marriage). Maasai women also lack political representation at all levels, from community to national government. Bee keeping is a revolutionary opportunity because the majority of these women are living in or nearby conservation areas or in forests which provide conducive bee keeping conditions while beekeeping is an activity which is environmentally friendly. Also, the Tanzaania’s legal framework makes provision to allow beekeeping activities within National parks and protected areas.
WHY BEEKEEPING
According to Research and Markets ( www.researchandmarkets.com ), the world's largest markets research store, the global honey market size is expected to reach USD 13.57 billion by 2030. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2022 to 2030. Increased demand for nutritious and natural sugar alternatives and healthy spreads is expected to drive the market. The growing demand for vegan and organic honey products, including soups, challah, and hot toddy, is likely to fuel the overall growth of this market. According to Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, the sector is estimated to generate US 1.7 million each year from sales of honey, and beeswax and employs about 2 million rural people. It is an important economic activity with potential to improving incomes, especially for communities leaving close to forests and woodlands. Beekeeping also plays a major role in improving biodiversity and increasing crop production through pollination. It is estimated that Tanzania has about 9.2 million honeybee colonies where production potential of bee products is about 138,000 tons of honey and 9,200 tons of beeswax per annum (URT, 1998). These are worthy US $ 138 million and US $ 18.4 million, respectively (using average prices of the year 2003, i.e. US $ 1 per kg. of Honey and US $ 2 per kg. of beeswax). However present utilization of this potential is only about 3.5% annually. According to Tanzania Forest Service (TFS) Strategic Plan, Tanzania is constructing honey processing facilities to double its production from 30,400 tonnes of honey annually to 60,000 tonnes in 2025 to make it the largest producer of raw honey in Africa. Ethiopia is currently the largest honey producer in Africa, producing about 45,000MT of raw honey annually. Any investment made in supporting this project is a significant investment on protection of biodiversity and mitigation of climate change.
MAMA NYUKI BUSINESS MODEL
A group of 5 to 11 women who voluntary choose themselves and form a formal and registered group with the Local Government Authority. Each group goes through beekeeping training package on beekeeping best practices, honey products business, packaging and marketing. Along the business cycle they also learn other modules like gender, leadership and conservation. For girls with basic secondary school education, we also train them on digital business. These women are provided with tools and equipment for beekeeping with close follow up throughout the business cycle. After production, Elimu Foundation connects them with local and foreign markets mainly lodges, hotels and supermarkets.
AN ANALOGY OF BEE AND HIVE IN TRAINING AND MENTORING INDIGINOUS WOMENNaturally, bees have it all figured out, when it comes to learning about the importance of women-led communities, leadership, gender, business, communication, teamwork, hard work as well as strategic operations. Our curriculum is inspired by the article written by Khanyi Mlaba a content manager and editor at Global Citizen with the tittle “5 Things Bees Can Teach Us About Feminism. In her tittle Khanyi Mlaba highlights the significant role of the women in the society and their unvalued social and economic contribution. She portrays a women as a leader taking ana analogy of a queen bee, hardworking taking ana analogy of female bees contrarily to male bees (drones) According to National Geographic, “they spend their whole lives eating honey and waiting for the opportunity to mate.
p< Khanyi Mlaba says “It means that a functioning hive is impossible without female bees at the forefront of everything. They lead the community, they clean and build the hive, they forage for food, they care for and nurse sick bees — they run the entire society, because they were born to do so. This is a key lesson for human communities. Women can be anything they want to be, and are capable of being at the forefront of any and all spaces; if only they are trusted to do so and the space is made for them to be there”When teaching about product packaging, sales and marketing of honey products we use ana analogy of queen bee to remind women in business to make sure that their products must be market driven and meeting customers satisfaction otherwise the market must invalidate their products and kick them out of the market the way the workers bee end the reign of the queen bee when she is no longer productive and invalid for the entire life cycle.
HOW BEEKEEPING SUPPORT CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY IN TANZANIAIn developing agriculture in Tanzania, bees are vital in climate change mitigation and while economies around the world look to adopt green economy approaches to production, beekeeping should be emphasized as a vital element to climate change mitigation. Where bee keeping is vibrant, then vegetation also thrives because bees pollinate crops. By investing in beekeeping, the efforts are directly helping mitigate the effects of climate change by helping forests and other vegetation grow. As bees pollinate vegetation and forests grow, then a country's CO2 footprint is lowered, beekeeping in this sense is a cost effective approach to climate change mitigation. If not for the lucrative returns and much needed foreign exchange and increasing crop production through pollination then at least we should invest in beekeeping for the sake of promoting and improving biodiversity.
SUPPORTIVE POLICY AND LEGAL FRAMEWORKTanzania legislature support beekeeping. The government of Tanzania has taken initiative to revive and develop beekeeping. For starters, the government has enacted enabling laws like the National Beekeeping Programme and the Beekeeping Act No. 15, (2002) The Beekeeping Act No. 15 of 2002. The Act is meant to, among other things, improve the quality and quantity of bee products, prevent and eradicate bee diseases and bee pests, and to improve revenue collection. Then you have the National Forestry Policy (1998) which provides opportunities for beekeepers to practice beekeeping in forest reserves. It doesn't stop there, you also have the Wildlife Policy of Tanzania (1998) which encourages beekeeping in Wildlife Management Areas (WMA). It provides special permission for beekeeping in game reserves and game controlled areas. Finally you have the Village Land Act (1999) that supports community based natural resources management and empowers the community at the village level to be allocated land for beekeeping. With such enabling laws, what is hindering the development of beekeeping in Tanzania is lack of relevant production and business skills, lack of capital and inadequacy of information and awareness to stakeholders. For that reason, Elimu Foundation believes it is very important to design strategic intervention and initiatives to support deprivileged groups mainly women from indigenous communities to tap into this promising opportunity to make business and conservation at the same time.