MAKING A BUZZ
Care-Co - Rodrigues/MAURITIUS

Hives for the Handicapped is a project started in the early 1990s by a charity called Care-Co. The project trains disabled people in the science of beekeeping and helps to set them up with hives. A small non-profit making company then assists the beekeepers to process and market their product.

Apiculture experts from the UK pay occasional visits to provide advice and ensure that standards are being upheld. The honey has won recognition around the world, including a Silver Medal at the International Honey Show in London. It is sold at a premium price at two shops in Rodrigues and in several Mauritius hotels. It is also served on the breakfast trays of Air Mauritius, the national airline.

The income from these honey sales - and from associated products such as beeswax candles - provides a good living for the project's 15 disabled beekeepers. With high unemployment rate on the island, they would otherwise have few - if any - employment options. Care-Co hopes the project can be replicated for the benefit of physically disabled people throughout East Africa.

What are they doing now

“BBC World Challenge and the prestige of being selected among the 12 finalists in 2006 seems to live on with us,” says Paul Draper, the founder of Care-Co. The organisation helps disabled people on Rodrigues Island near Mauritius learn how to care for hives and produce honey for the commercial market. The income from these honey sales – and from associated products such as beeswax candles – provides a good living for the project's 15 disabled beekeepers.

Paul Draper admits that since World Challenge filmed in 2006, his project has had mixed fortunes. Exporting the honey has been a particular challenge, with strict European import laws and packaging design flaws both causing problems. Paul says that because Rodrigues Island is so remote, “it has fewer opportunities for project ideas and successful development activities, and more so when this involves the disabled.”

On the plus side, Paul entered Care-Co honey in the National Honey Show in the UK in November 2008 where it came runner-up in the Classification 'Honey from all countries of the World except the UK and Ireland’. The project also received a two million-rupee grant from the European Union / Government of Mauritius Decentralized Co-operation Programme.

“The BBC World Challenge was a great morale-booster to us and contributed to our credibility and prestige,” says Draper. “We use the news of this in all our newsletters and publicity materials. Through the publicity gained the project now receives a lot of emails from groups around the world who are in beekeeping and honey processing and marketing, and some from organisations for the disabled who wish to learn more.”