Education is key to rebuilding and invigorating impoverished communities, and that is at the heart of the Mama Buci story

Our focus starts with educating the beekeepers and families on how to work with their land to help maintain a healthy ecosystem.

Beekeeping has been a popular income-generating activity in Zambia for centuries. However, most of the honey produced is kept in traditional bark hives, which involves a harvesting process that strips the bark from the tree. This method, over time, sadly leads to the death of the tree. This not only has a negative impact on the environment but also to the beekeepers’ income as the bees need the trees to produce honey.

Our unique, hand-built hives are fully sustainable and crafted locally. They preserve the trees and provide a permanent hive for future communities to benefit from. Beekeepers within the Mama Buci honey scheme have seen their average wage increase significantly. Our goal is to continue to grow in order to help more people produce and sell honey so they can make a real impact in both their families and communities’ lives.

Bringing our supporters, delicious, pure, sustainable honey is only the first stage of our journey. Mama Buci wants to make a real difference to the lives of people in Zambia and other impoverished countries.

African man in workshop
Girls holding Mama Buci sign

Honey for Change

Give Hope Africa

In 2005 we founded the charity Give Hope Africa to give children in some of the poorest areas in Africa a chance in life through education. We are currently running projects in both Zambia and Ethiopia.

Our vision is to see every child grow and reach their potential by providing education, promoting community empowerment and increasing self sufficiency.

Zambia

Our first major community project began in 2006 when we set up the Luyando school in Kamafwesa which now educates over 420 children and provides employment for 11 local teachers.

The schools’ administration is run by The Limapela Foundation with Give Hope providing vital funding to maintain the school and continue increasing the number of children reached.

As well as this, the school also carries out literacy and numeracy programme for adults in the village during the evenings and weekends.

Other Give Hope initiatives include:

  • The construction of a temporary hall for the community where the elderly, women, and youths hold various events such as church services and sporting events.
  • The creation of the hammer mill where the women are now able to mill their own maize quickly and efficiently, to sell and feed their own families.
  • The Conservation Farming scheme which was introduced in 2007. The scheme teaches principles of management and environmental stewardship whilst achieving outstanding profitability. There is little wastage, it is environmentally friendly and sustainable.
  • The opening of a village shop in 2006 so the community can purchase items they need on a day-today basis without travelling long distances whilst also creating employment opportunities.
Map of Africa with Zambia highlighted in orange

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT
WWW.GIVEHOPEAFRICA.ORG/ZAMBIA

Girls holding Mama Buci sign

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT
WWW.GIVEHOPEAFRICA.ORG/ETHIOPIA

ETHIOPIA

We also run a scheme in Ethiopia for children with HIV to obtain the same support. Our main scheme in Ethiopia focuses on providing education and support to children living with HIV.

The children enrolled receive tutorial support three days a week. This is conducted by a group of seven volunteers with degrees from recognised universities in and outside of the country. All children on the programme have their school fees paid and receive school uniforms and stationery.

As well as this there is a large focus on the children’s health, the support includes:

  • Regular health checks on a quarterly basis by Ethiopian and foreign health professionals.
  • Medical treatment for chronic and acute illness including private clinics and hospitals.
  • Nutritional provisions including meat, milk, fruit and vegetables and this is tailored to the needs of the child, especially in the case of children recovering from chronic sickness such as tuberculosis and/or living with HIV/AIDS.

It’s also important for us to focus on the rest of the community to ensure the children are receiving the support they need at home. Various initiatives have been created to help push this further including:

  • Give Hope Ethiopia (GHE) ‘Women’s Saving, Credit and Income Generation Project’, which aims to empower women by facilitating the training of women on benefits of saving and credit, basic accounting and skills of leadership.
  • Provision of match funding, GHE provides match funding for each woman according to the amount of money she manages to save on a weekly basis. It coordinates with banks to facilitate the opening of a savings account whilst providing legal coverage.
  • Youth empowerment through life-skills training to girls at both high-school and university on a range of topics.
  • Finally, GHE has finalized preparation to start up a HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support project in Legetafo Legedadi, Oromia region. The prevention work targets labourers at construction sites, factory workers and highschool students.

Help us help more families

We hope to continue helping more families, build more schools, and provide you all with a delicious, healthy and soulful alternative to mainstream honey products. By purchasing a pot of our honey you are becoming part of the growing Mama Buci story and directly affecting change in communities that really need our help.