Please join us in supporting unaccompanied refugee minor (URM) girls in Cyprus through vocational beekeeping training!

About:

‘Queen Bees’ is the first project to offer apiculture-based vocational training to the refugee population in Cyprus. The project engages skilled beekeepers from rural areas of Larnaca’s honey villages to deliver #beekeeping activities, educational seminars, vocational training, and honeybee goods production workshops to enhance the capacities of URM girls.

In 2022 alone, nearly 925 unaccompanied or separated minors applied for asylum in Cyprus. Many lack the support structures to acquire education or make a smooth transition into adulthood. Once they reach legal age, they lose their entitlement to additional support and must leave shelter facilities. However, life outside the shelters often brings significant challenges and unemployment. Girls' transition to adulthood is often fraught with additional risks and discrimination, such as gender-based violence and trauma.

Beekeeping is incredibly beneficial to our ecosystem and environment – it is a therapeutic, vocational practice, an opportunity for income generation, and a tool for empowerment. Beekeeping can become a place for belonging and growth for girls who often find themselves in precarious situations without familiar support. Our initiative also promotes educational mainstreaming for the participating girls.

Our Team & Partners:

We are a founding team of four friends, Maria, Caro, Sarah, and Charlotte, a local Cypriot. We met when studying a Masters's program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Beyond our shared International Development background, we combine interdisciplinary and complementary skill sets ranging from social work to business, gender studies, law, ecology and environmentalism, multicultural youth work, arts, and capacity training. We have worked with refugee populations in Greece, Israel, and Asia.

Queen Bees works with local partners, including UNHCR Cyprus, a shelter in the Larnaca region, and Ecophysis Bee & Nature Education Center, whose more than decade-long experience with local beekeeping will benefit our first cohort of 10 girls.

Your donations help to cover project expenses such as transport and workshop materials.

We will love to send you a small token of appreciation for your support; look at the picture below for details.

Thanks so much for your support!

Carolin, Charlotte, Maria, Sarah

#Employability #SocialImpact #Refugees