Queen Bees: enhancing opportunities for UMR girls in Cyprus through beekeeping
Cyprus is currently the leading asylum-receiving country per capita in the EU, and a large number of arrivals are adolescents just before they transition to adulthood. At the same time, Larnaca is known for its diverse natural habitats and honey. Queen Bees pilot program targets unaccompanied refugee girls in that crucial transition phase. We utilize the region's beekeeping as a therapeutic, vocational practice, an opportunity for income generation, and a tool for empowerment.
Regional
Cyprus
Larnaca
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Maria Christina Last name: Erhard Gender: Female Age: 26 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Austria Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Kalvarienbergstraße 39+41 Town: Graz Postal code: 8020 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+972587077383 E-mail:maria.christina.erhard@gmail.com
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New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
In 2022 alone, almost 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 often have to leave camp facilities. However, life outside the camps and shelters is met with significant challenges due to unemployment, xenophobia, and the absence of comprehensive, state-led solutions. Their transition to adulthood is, therefore, fraught with additional intersecting risks, such as crime and prostitution, discrimination, and recurring trauma.
Beekeeping is not only deeply connected to the Larnaca region, it is also a traditional and respected practice in many of the societies from which these adolescents were displaced. Beyond that, it is a therapeutic, vocational practice, an opportunity for income generation, and a tool for empowerment. Using beekeeping, the Queen Bees initiative will promote educational mainstreaming for the participating girls and become a place for belonging and growth. Beyond that, it connects the participating girls with a beekeeping center in Larnaca and other local actors and, thus, provides a platform for cultural exchange and inclusion.
With its first pilot cohort of 8-10 participants in 2023, the Queen Bees initiative will evolve around a six-month training course, involving knowledge acquisition, ecological awareness, practical immersion at a beekeeping center in Larnaca, independent group projects, and skills transfer in the areas of employability and social entrepreneurship. Beyond that, social cohesion elements and mood-regulating practices related to beekeeping will take place in any session.
Beekeeping
Unaccompanied refugee girls
Vocational practice
Cross-community linkages
Transition to adulthood
The key objectives are as follows:
1) Hand in hand with the shelter, enroll an initial cohort of ten participants in a half-year training program during the spring and summer of 2023.
2) Build participants’ capacity and vocational knowledge through beekeeping, environmentalism, and social entrepreneurship training.
3) Foster teamwork, responsibility, communication, and collaborative thinking in participants through bee-related workshops and monthly practice hours at the beehives alongside experienced beekeepers.
4) Support graduates in their further development and applying vocational learned skills, and long-term, the set-up of hives.
The anticipated impact is as follows:
1) Outputs
.) Vocational training on the local, global, and environmental aspects of beekeeping.
.) Social entrepreneurship workshops with practical tools to implement.
.) Social activities emphasizing group cohesion and self-confidence.
.) Apprenticeship component creating an emphasis on employability.
2) Outcomes
.) Deep understanding of the beekeeping vocation and related environmental issues.
.) Knowledge of entrepreneurial tools and the regulatory landscape in beekeeping.
.) Participants will overcome fears and develop their confidence and individual strengths.
.) Supervisor endorsements and roadmap for career development.
Please refer to the attached development plan for the program's sustainability model.
Queen Bees will implement well-being practices, highlighting mindfulness as a tool to relax, connect to one's body and breath, and connect with one's surroundings. This tool will further deepen the girl's ability to retain the knowledge and tools they learn throughout the beekeeping workshops. The program facilitators will introduce this practice in a class setting at the beginning of the initial workshop. They will continue to facilitate shorter practices at the start of each workshop. These tools will be vital for the participating girls to feel calm and confident around the bees, no matter their cultural backgrounds. We expect some may come from urban settings and some from rural settings, not all being familiar with this vocation before the program.
Participants will also engage in hands-on craft workshops where they design and craft their own soaps and candles made from harvested beeswax. This will provide another further opportunity for individual and creative expression in connection with the elements of beekeeping and ground their experience in the surrounding nature. It is essential that through education and practice, the participating girls feel empowered and able to give back to their new environment and connect with the local and global tradition of beekeeping.
Queen Bees employs inclusively in several ways. Firstly, Queen Bees operates through a gender lens that emphasizes the inclusion of UMR girls who encounter intersecting challenges such as lack of family and support system, language barriers, racism, sexism, lack of legal status, and trauma, to name a few, which may generally hinder their will to participate in social or educational activities. By engaging this demographic, Queen Bees not only promotes their inclusion into mainstream education and the labor market but also builds social cohesion and familiarity by including participants in activities with the local population.
Secondly, all day-to-day costs and transportation in relation to the program will be covered by the project for all participants; this is vital as the girls are not yet of working age or allowed outside of the camps unsupervised. The participants will have complete accessibility to and from the ecological bee site with transport and guardians provided by the project.
Thirdly, Queen Bees is a women-led program working with two key partnerships ranging from the local-led grassroots bee center to the multilateral organization UNHCR, thus including various stakeholders in our governing system.
Citizens will benefit from the individual to communal levels. Two primary demographics will directly benefit from the program, which is expected to produce a ripple impact. The UMR girls that live in the state-run Larnaca shelter will learn about and engage with the local surrounding area, where integrative programs with locals and refugees are seldom. The impact will be threefold for participants.
Firstly they will gain fundamental tools and transferable skills through and within beekeeping, also based on social entrepreneurship and marketing/financial basics. Secondly, the program enables participants to cultivate a sense of belonging with their peers and individual well-being, as the project will also function with psychosocial benefits. Thirdly, the participants will engage with locals in a positive and encouraging environment and establish a local network for the future.
The second demographic is the local beekeepers and residents of the rural Larnaca area. The local beekeepers will benefit from the program in a range of ways.
Firstly, by transmitting vital environmental knowledge, the local beekeepers will preserve their intangible cultural knowledge by sharing traditional practices of beekeeping that have emerged from the local environment. Secondly, they will further their relevance as a hub for beekeeping and as an ecological knowledge base. The local beekeepers will also expand their network and have several apprentices they may employ and add to their team. This engagement of both demographics will further the concept of refugee integration in rural areas, where the Larnana beekeeping village is located. Furthermore, Queen Bees will increase positive refugee visibility to the broader national population as they engage in local contexts.
Queen Bees begins at the individual level with the local beekeepers knowledge and training, and extends to benefit different spheres of influence, these include the interpersonal level, where social networks are formed between refugees and locals, the organizational level, as social institutions such as the local bee nature center are engaged and finally the community level where positive relationships between organisations will be formed including the local bee center, a local bee museum, the UNHCR and the state-run shelter. Furthermore, we believe this will be extended to the public level and serve to promote a positive example of refugee inclusion into national discourse and raise awareness of refugee and asylum-seekers challenges on the island.
The project is executed by three primary stakeholders. Firstly, the founding team of four Master’s graduates in International Development from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Maria Erhard, Carolin Martz, Sarah Cohen, and Charlotte Storer who is a local Cypriot. Secondly, the local Ecophysis Bee & Nature Education Center with technical knowledge of beekeeping and will deliver practical and theoretical training. The small centre are experts in local and traditional beekeeping practices. They will also provide a platform to engage with a variety of other beekeeping institutions/education hubs. Thirdly, the UNHCR will facilitate our contact with state and social services to allow access to participants in The Larnaca Kofinou Center which is a restricted, state-led structure that houses a fluctuating number of URM girls. We have selected the shelter in Larnaca because of its location in a region of longstanding beekeeping culture. Facilitated through UNHCR, the shelter will assist with recruitment, coordinate workshop hours, and allocate guardians for off-site visits. The UNHCR will recommend best practices for our project in this specific context and assist with safeguarding and accessible transportation.
The project incorporates several disciplines, including social work, community development, environmentalism, and migration research.
Our founding team is interdisciplinary, with backgrounds in social work, business administration, gender studies, law, ecology, arts, and culture. We have worked with refugee populations in Greece, Israel, and Asia and bring together complementary skill sets. This means that the design of Queen Bees reflects a range of knowledge fields as each team member brings their expertise and insights under the umbrella of international development. As a result, the program is designed with components that are complementary to one another, such as ecological training, crafts, and social entrepreneurship, all with a first-hand awareness of the psychosocial benefits that each experience will cultivate.
In terms of environmental expertise, Ecophysis Bee & Nature Education Center will facilitate and deliver hands-on beekeeping workshops at their center, which includes bee hives, educational classroom spaces, and production materials and equipment. The center includes a classroom/educational space, a honey production workshop, and a small beeswax and honey handicraft shop. In terms of migration, the UNHCR will bring us into contact with the state-led shelter and services acting as a liaison concerning local authorities and compliance. They will also support us in context-specific knowledge relating to the refugee and asylum-seeking population in Cyprus and recommend best practices in project implementation while also acting as a connector to other organizations serving this demographic on the island.
Evaluations of various beekeeping programs with refugees found the occupation successful in enhancing self-esteem, building vocational capacities, creating independence and autonomy, and diversifying nutrition. Beekeeping can become a place for belonging and growth for girls who often find themselves in precarious situations without familiar support. This initiative would also promote educational mainstreaming for the participating girls.
Queen Bees will be the first-ever beekeeping project with the refugee population in Cyprus and the first to offer vocational/ecological/social entrepreneurship training to UMR adolescent girls. Queen Bees will engage locals and participants within the rural area of Larnaca honey villages, where there is a deficient emphasis and lack of opportunities for integration.
Many similar beekeeping programs have been initiated with the refugee community in worldwide contexts. A focus on this discipline is a global necessity as these vocations are dying out over time especially in local communities. By introducing beekeeping practices to refugees and asylum seekers, they not only serve as a therapeutic tool but work as a way of giving back to our natural environment.
Many elements of our program may be replicated into other contexts. For example, the project model could be replicated in an urban setting in Cyprus bringing traditional knowledge to the cities of the country from the periphery areas. Our workshop curriculum which includes mindfulness, beekeeping training and social entrepreneurship may serve as an educational model for programs in various contexts with similar or other demographics. Our ‘train the trainer’ model, whereby members from the first Queen Bees cohort are hired to lead the following cohort, will also serve the sustainability of similar projects in different contexts. The relevance and processes of our triangle partnership model, which includes local beekeepers, founding team of facilitators and supporters (UNHCR, shelter and local NGO’s) may also be transferred to other contexts.
Queen Bees addresses the global challenge of migration and forced displacement. Cyprus is the top asylum-receiving country per capita in the EU, and according to the UNHCR, early orientation programs that facilitate integration are one of the most critical unmet needs on the island. Queen Bees bolsters UMR girls' educational development with a combination of local ecological knowledge and practical tools. The beekeeping cohort allows participants to form meaningful relationships with fellow participants, beekeepers, and local communities around Larnaca, as activities require collaboration. As local environmental and beekeeping benefits are generally overlooked in Cyprus, Queen Bees also contributes towards the environmental movement in Cyprus that is seeking to revitalise traditional knowledge and practices that are becoming lost as well as bring about awareness on environmental issues and sustainability.
