Budongo Women Bee Enterprise

Empowering women and communities through an organic beekeeping enterprise
2014 SEED Africa Award; European Union
Biodiversity
Kampala
Uganda

BUWOBE focuses on honey production, processing and manufacture of beekeeping equipment. It trains women - who pay to be members of the enterprise in turn for receiving training and equipment - to manage hives and production. The women sell their honey and beeswax back to BUWOBE, who then markets the produce. 

Building on its women members, BUWOBE raises communities’ awareness of climate change, sustainable land use practices and energy-saving technologies. The enterprise is also focused on sustaining the overall local environment, and works with beekeepers on replanting land affected by deforestation.

Eco-Inclusive Impacts
BUWOBE is focused on sustaining the overall local environment through sustainable beekeeping and is creating sustainable jobs for up to 60% of its community, an especially important opportunity for women marginalised due to poverty or HIV.
  • Job creation for women who are often marginalised through poverty or HIV.
  • Contributing to local malaria control programmes through production of mosquito repellent candles.
  • Empowering women beekeepers to pass on their knowledge to other farmers by providing on-going training.
  • Encouraging beekeepers to adopt sustainable practices in all aspects of their daily lives, like converting to clean energy cook stoves and planting produce suited to the region instead of sugarcane.
  • Working as a collective to replant land affected by deforestation
  • Creating a local economy that provides sustainable jobs for upwards of 60% of the community.
  • Increasing income for farmers by 40%, and offering a means of moving beyond subsistence farming.

 

Partners

Budongo Women Bee Enterprise is a co-operative beekeeping enterprise producing honey and beeswax products. In mobilising women in the Masindi region to become beekeepers, the enterprise uses the honey business as a vehicle for community development, including promotion of sustainable land-use and climate change adaptation.

Budongo Women Bee Enterprise Group (BUWOBE) forms the core workforce of the BUWOBE enterprise. They recruit new farmers as well as to partake in additional activities organized through the enterprise.


Safeplan Uganda supports BUWOBE with training in beekeeping practices, candle making, and construction of energy-saving technologies such as cookstoves. 

Uganda Small Scale Industries Association (Masindi branch) networks and links BUWOBE to markets or buyers. It also provides training in business and technical skills, and offers business incubation with the Uganda Industrial Research Institute.