Plan 'bee'

I recently travelled to Lepaera in western Honduras to meet women supported by Christian Aid’s local partner Christian Organisation for Integral Development of Honduras (OCDIH). The journey to their village in Lepaera took around six hours by road, which mostly meandered around mountainous countryside thick with trees.

Honduras is the second poorest country in the western Hemisphere. It is also the third most extreme weather affected country in the world and Lepaera is located along Central America’s ‘Dry Corridor’, an area of land that spans parts of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

It’s an area vulnerable to both extended periods of drought followed by heavy rainfall, which causes severe flooding of nearby rivers that wipes out harvests, or worse. As a result families often experience food shortages, and a loss of sellable crops which pushes them further into poverty.

In village of Laguna de Pedernal I met Martin Alvarado who works for OCDIH, who walked me through the challenges people living in the area are facing. 

“Lepaera is among the poorest areas in the country,” Martin told me. 

“Climate change is a big challenge. The local communities suffer the struggles of long dry seasons that cause harvest losses for families,” he added. 

With people increasingly vulnerable to climate extremes, our local partner works with farming families to help them diversify into other income generating opportunities so they are less reliant on growing a handful of climate vulnerable crops types. 

OCDIH work closely with a community group called the ORMMEL association, which was set up by local women to raise awareness of gender-based violence and provide companionship for survivors of abuse as well as create a safe space for women to meet.

“There's a lot of violence in Lepaera. We are one of the areas that suffers the most amount of gender-based violence. This has a lot to do with the economic dependency that women have on their husbands,”  Martin explained. 

ORMMEL also tackle the root causes of violence towards women. With support from our partner, ORMMEL has been able to empower its members to become beekeepers so they can earn their own income. This allows women to reduce their economic reliance on their husbands and it’s also a means through which survivors of gender-based violence can become financially independent from their abusers.

With support from Christian Aid, OCDIH has provided training on bee breeding and management as well as provided money to kickstart beekeeping business for local people. Most recently, thanks to funding from the Bank of Ireland Charitable Staff Fund, Christian Aid’s local partner was also able to train members of ORMEL on the latest techniques on how to correctly harvest honey and rear queen bees as well as how to divide hives – a method which boosts the number of bee colonies you have and the amount of honey you can produce. 

OCDIH are also providing training on how to develop organic insect repellents, fungicides and fertiliser which will contribute to the protection of pollinators and help to safeguard and strengthen honey production. They are also being provided with training on how to conserve and replant the local area with trees and shrubs which will provide a source of pollen and nectar for bees. 

In addition to their money making ability, bee breeding also holds traditional significance in Honduras. The Mayan people domesticated and bred bees to produce honey and wax to eat as well as use in medicines and ceremonies. With support from our partner, the breeding of the same bee type symbolises a connection between the past to the present.

I was struck during my travels in Honduras by just how dependent people are on living off the land to survive. While the only option for many, their economic insecurity was clear, and it often felt as though people are living on a knife’s edge of survival. 

I also met many budding entrepreneurs, and arguably no one embodied the ‘can-do’ spirit more than mum of 11 and grandmother of 37, Candida Diaz. 

“My parents were very, very poor. They couldn't put any of our family in school,” Candida said.   

“I cannot even read but I am very motivated,” she proudly added.

OCDIH provided Candida with two beehives and with the training she received, she was able to divide these into four hives. Candida explained that her passion for her bees has spread throughout the family. 

“My husband helps me, doing the frameworks on the filters and everything with the wood. My children and my grandchildren love the honey,” she said.

The confidence, drive and sense of fulfilment that Candida and the other beekeepers have gained through the project was a joy to see. I hope and pray to see the programme grow to help more women through support from our sponsoring churches.