Anita Kushwaha has mobilized her community to work on beekeeping
Anita Kushwaha has fought for her right to education, overcome caste barriers and patriarchy to successfully launch her beekeeping business.
As a young girl, her father expected her to shepherd goats, look after her siblings and marry young. Since she was 6, she fought for her education, paying for it by making beekeeping profitable enough so that she could complete her Bachelor’s degree.
As modest beekeepers with limited funds, Anita and her community had to sell the raw honey to large distributors who would keep the bulk of the profits for themselves. We met with Anita to discuss her requirements and came up with a plan to equip the community with honey refining and bottling plant to enable them to become independent producers.
An urgent community need
Local beekeepers were being robbed of their profits by the distributors and larger brands because they didn’t have the ability to process raw honey and sell their products.
Ubharti raises funds for the processing and bottling plant for Anita’s community
Ubharti raised funds to equip Anita’s community with the processing plant and the bottling unit which enabled the beekeepers to take the products to the market directly by eliminating the middleman.
Anita with the bee hives
Anita at work
Anita is proudly selling her packaged product
Community members work collectively
Raising a happy family
Donors
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Sravani Mitra
Sr Director, VISA
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Uma G Nathan
Lead Product Manager, DocuSign
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Mousumi Dasgupta
Founder, Ubharti