Beekeeping for Hope in Senegal

WHEN BEES MAKE HONEY, A SENEGALESE VILLAGE MAKES MONEY.

It’s that simple, and we want to help the village continue this project.

 Beekeeping has the power to generate income for a group of men and women in rural Sinthian, Senegal. They can sell the honey the bees produce, and they can use the beeswax to make candles, soaps, and other products.

(Filtering honey in Sinthian)

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Income from beekeeping can transform these villagers’ lives. It would provide for food, fees at the local medical cooperative, and could be saved up to build a house or start a small business. This is money that most villagers just don’t have, because they don’t earn much from farming during the four-month rainy season, which lasts from about July to October. 

(Prepping the land for farming before the rains come)

Climate change is making the rainy season unstable, which means sometimes the villagers' crops fail, and they get nothing. But beekeeping can happen year-round, making the residents less dependent on their farming income.

WHO WE ARE,
AND WHAT WE'VE DONE ALREADY

We are Le Korsa, a 501c3 charity devoted to improving human lives in Senegal. We have already funded a 20-member men’s group to receive training, and buy equipment, to get started with beekeeping this year. Their first harvest of 10 liters came in, and the honey was delicious. More importantly, the honey had 15% water content. That means it won’t ferment or spoil, can be stored indefinitely, and is ideal for shipping. Those qualities, combined with its excellent taste, mean it will command high prices on the international market—great news for our friends in Sinthian.


WHAT'S NEXT

Now, the men’s group wants to double the amount of hives, from 20 to 40, which would allow them to produce more honey to sell. And, the women’s group in the village, with whom we work on gardening and soap making, want to learn to transform beeswax into household and hygiene products.

To do all this, we need to raise $5000 so the men and women can receive more training from an expert who works with Africa BeeCause, an organization devoted to beekeeping and income generation. We also need to purchase them the required equipment, including more hives, bee suits, buckets, gloves, packaging, and the tools needed to extract and process the honey.

(Augustin Diouf, Le Korsa's assistant agricultural coordinator, dressed in one of the two bee suits we have)

Our goal is to raise the money by the end of October, so the group can install the hives, and the bees can take advantage of the vegetation still in bloom before the rainy season ends.

 With additional training and equipment, the men’s and women’s groups will be on their way to earning more income.

Plus, expanding the beekeeping project has another added benefit for the village: it is a powerful tool in the fight against climate change. To get beekeeping started in Sinthian, everyone agreed to create a large environmental sanctuary adjacent to the village, where no farming or woodcutting is allowed.

(Abib Dieye, Le Korsa's agricultural coordinator, cautiously approaching the beehives in the environmental sanctuary)

That means the bees have a full range of flora to pollinate, and that all the trees are there to do their job of storing water, releasing oxygen, and preventing soil erosion—all of which is crucial in the Sahel region, where the land is increasingly depleted.

To add more hives, the village will further increase this environmental sanctuary, and preserve even more land, thereby helping to preserve their community in a warming world.

HELP THE BEEKEEPERS!

It's you that can really make a difference in the lives of our friends and partners in Sinthian. Please make a donation and help them get the honey flowing. We will be so grateful to each and every one of of you. Thank you so much!