Bee Prosperous - featured image

BEE PROSPEROUS PROGRAMME

We are excited to announce the start of the Bee Prosperous Programme, with funding support from the DG Murray Trust. This is a two-year programme aimed at empowering 50 rural youth in KZN and Eastern Cape to establish 25 apiaries (beekeeping businesses). This programme includes comprehensive beekeeping training and mentorship, as well as infrastructure support (such as fencing and hives) and strategic market linkages for eligible trainees. 

This programme is only available to youth who live within 25km of Kwanyana in the Amadiba area of the Eastern Cape, or within 60km of Obanjeni in KZN. Please note that no stipends are offered to trainees.

Programme duration: January 2024 – December 2025

Programme partners: DG Murray Trust and Kingdom Bees

Goal: To foster and sustainably support the emergence of an apiarist network within the rural communities where Siyazisiza operates.

Main Activities: 

  1. Training of Siyazisiza staff in beekeeping technical and business skills (February & March 2024).
  2. Recruit aspiring young beekeepers (April – May 2024).
  3. Training of successful applicants (June 2024).
  4. Establishing 25 apiaries, including the trapping of bee swarms, setting up hives, and fencing of apiaries (July 2024 – March 2025).
  5. Constructing honey extraction units for honey harvesting: 1 in Amadiba and 1 at the Zululand Agri-Support Centre in Obanjeni (November 2024 – March 2025).
  6. Mentoring of the new beekeepers, including linking them into local apiarist networks for long-term support, and to aggregate products for better price negotiations and market access (July 2024 – December 2025).

Beneficiaries: 30 youth from the Amadiba area and 20 youth from the Umlalazi area, of whom 60% minimum are women. (“Youth” are defined as young people from the ages of 18 – 35 years old.)

Donor information: DG Murray Trust (DGMT) is a public innovator through strategic investment. Innovation is achieved through behavioural change (influencing individual and societal mindsets and actions) and through technological change. For DGMT, public innovation is simply the process of making the world a better place for all people, in synergy with nature.

APPLICATION & TRAINEE INFORMATION

Logistics:

  • Trainees will receive free training, including transport, meals and accommodation for the workshop, as well as mentorship in the field.
  • The training workshops will take place in June 2024, and will be 4-days long, with travel time on either side of the workshop.
  • The training workshops will be held at Siyazisiza’s Zululand Agri-Support Centre in Obanjeni, KZN (which is approximately 15km from Gingindlovu, 9km from Mtunzini, and 40km from Empangeni).
  • Based on completion of the training as well as successfully progressing through the assessment process, each pair of trainees will be assisted (through the provision of bee hives, beekeeping apparatus, materials and equipment, and technical support) in setting up their apiaries.
  • Trainees will be mentored over the initial set up period and through the first harvesting of honey (expected to be during the second year of running an apiary).
  • Trainees will be linked into local apiarist networks and supported to access markets for sale of their bee products.

Trainee application criteria:

  • Applicants must apply in pairs (two people) who have experience working effectively together.
  • Applicants must be South Africans aged 18 – 35 years old, and have no criminal record.
  • Applicants must demonstrate an interest in beekeeping as well as not being afraid of bees or being allergic to bee stings.
  • At least 1 of the pair of applicants must have basic writing and numeracy skills in order to keep records for beekeeping business purposes and reporting.
  • Applicants must have already considered possible sites in their area that are safe and suitable to establish an apiary in, and to have considered what nearby food options are available for the bees.

Selection process: 

FIRST ROUND:

As a pair of applicants, to:

  1. Submit application form by Friday 26th April 2024. Link to form is here.
  2. To submit a short motivational video by Friday 26th April 2024, in their home language explaining:
    • Why you are interested in this opportunity
    • What experience the two of you have working together
    • And why you think you could be successful beekeepers

(This video must be no longer than 3 minutes.)

Please send this video via email to info@siyazisiza.org.za or via WhatsApp to 077 275 9107.

SECOND ROUND:

Applicants who successfully make it through to the second round will be required to attend an interview (as a pair). KZN applicants will be interviewed at Siyazisiza’s Zululand Agri-Support Centre, and Eastern Cape applicants will be interviewed in the Amadiba area (location to be provided). Part of the interview process will check how comfortable the applicants are around bees.

THIRD ROUND:

Applicants who successfully make it through to the third round will be required to get a police clearance certificate. 

FINAL DECISION:

The successful applicants will be notified, and will be required to sign a Participation Agreement as an indication of their commitment to fulfil the requirements of the Programme, including participating in the training workshop, carrying out preparation and implementation tasks at their own apiary sites, following through with any requirements from the mentors, keeping detailed enterprise records, providing regular reports, and other obligations.

Any applicant found being dishonest in their application process will immediately be disqualified from acceptance into the programme.