Freeing up options of women living in the countryside

In Kenya, Kibwezi Women's Group Integrated Development Project started four programmes: bee-keeping, honey and wax refining, improved goat breeding and stabilized earth brick-making. All are generating additional income for women who had no future beyond subsistence farming. The added income from these projects has encouraged others to join the effort. Now thousands of women are involved in these projects. The keeping of bees, traditionally a men's occupation, was taken up by the women following training organized by the Ministry of Livestock Development. The women formed a co-operative and with the help of outside funds fenced land to plant and protect honey producing trees and shrubs. Also by the late 1980s, there were 19 Women's Registered Goat Breeding Co-operatives providing extra cash income and better nourishment. (No other livestock can survive in that area due to tsetse flies). There are 30 to 50 women in each co-operative, each with 30-50 goats, and learning the necessary skills like fodder cultivation.