First Success- Honey Harvesting

Bring on the Buzz has been extremely successful both in terms of crowdfunding (thank you, dear donors) and in implementation. The people of Baghanis are receiving training on the best practices of beekeeping and are already reaping the rewards of keeping bees. A few months ago we celebrated the first honey harvest.

Our Belief

One of the most important values at ONEArmenia is transparency, as it is what allows us to promise you that when you invest in the development of Armenia through our campaigns, your money is going where we say it’s going. So, although this campaign has been, and continues to be, implemented as planned from the beginning, we want to inform you of certain changes that were made to the final budget.

Bring on the Buzz: Finances

Our campaign to fund this project was very successful, thanks to you, our supporters. We exceeded our goal of $30,105 and raised $33,157 which meant by the end, our campaign was 110% funded. We were ecstatic and began to explore the possibility of including more families in the project to maximize our impact.

However, due to some miscommunication between one of our donors, G2iA, and our implementing partner, Sahman NGO, the pledge of $5000 made by G2iA was withdrawn. As our community had already raised an additional $3,052, this meant that the project was only $1,948 short of our initial budget. Sahman NGO and 1A split the difference to ensure that the project remained fully funded.

The reason for this miscommunication came from the manner in which G2iA’s $5000 pledge was made. G2iA wanted to make an in kind donation of physical beehives, rather than transfer the money to our campaign. As the money would be used to buy the hives anyway, Sahman agreed. G2iA did not buy the hives from Sahman’s supplier because they found a separate supplier who provided the hives for cheaper. Thinking that they would maximize their impact by providing more beehives than expected, G2iA purchased the hives.

The problem was that because these hives were not constructed by the same supplier which Sahman was using, it could not be ensured that they were of the same materials and quality. In order to be sure that all of the families in Baghanis received the proper tools with which to become beekeepers, Sahman decided not to accept these beehives.

It’s a case of quality over quantity. Though it would be great to involve more families in the project, it would not be prudent to do so if it meant forsaking the quality of the tools they received. Better to do it well to begin with, and expand in the future.

If you are interested in more of the details regarding how the finances were handled, you can find the expense report here and, as always, feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Moving Forward

Sahman is already working on involving 10 more families in Baghanis. These are families which already had the tools for beekeeping, but were inexperienced beekeepers or else found the funds for themselves to purchase hives. Sahman has invited them to join in on the training workshops so that they can gain the knowledge and experience of beekeeping alongside the other families which were selected through Bring on the Buzz.

One of the reasons this project is so sustainable is that the beekeepers can learn how to take care of their hives and eventually multiply them. This means that a family can increase their own productivity by increasing the number of hives they keep, or else they can give one or more of them to a neighbor allowing for even more people in Baghanis to get involved. Along the line, as the hives grow stronger and the beekeepers become more skilled, they will necessarily increase their honey production (and as a result, pollination of local plants).

So, despite the fact that we didn’t actually have the additional funds we anticipated, Sahman was still able to go ahead and implement the project as we had initially planned, with the added impact of training 10 extra families.

Honey for Sale

From the 72 kilos of honey produced this year, the people of Baghanis donated 20 kilos to the army. As their village is on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the people living there are all too familiar with the reality of war and are under regular sniper fire. It is important to them that they support their soldiers in anyway they can.

Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of any project is getting to see the final product. Baghanis honey is delicious, all-natural and beautifully presented. An additional 47 kilos of honey were sold amongst our community here in Yerevan. It was extremely rewarding to see how excited people were to buy the honey for their personal use.

The resulting $491 is set to be reinvested into the community in Baghanis. Their top priority at the moment is renovating the local kindergarten.