I decided that, as part of my pledge to give at least 1% of my salary to charity each year, I would donate to an organization that encourages beekeeping in the developing world to generate income for small entrepreneurs. To paraphrase, give a man (or woman) a piece of honey comb and he (or she) sweetens his tea for one day, teach a man (or woman) to raise bees and he (or she) will be able to support themselves and stimulate their local economy (and get stung a lot). I was reminded about this by a talk given by Adebisi Aderkunle who teaches Nigerians to build and use top bar hives as part of the Slow Food movement (as heard on the Barefoot Beekeeper podcast). So I started to do some googling to find a suitable charity.
Heifer International now supplies bees and bee equipment to the developing world. The donating process would be easy, but I don't think I agree with their beekeeping philosophy, ie I think they are supplying Langstroth hives. Langstroth is the kind of hive that I own, but they require much more equipment than a top bar hive, and in fact a top bar hive could be built in situ for almost nothing. That would be much more in keeping with the idea of providing the spark for a truly local endeavor.
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2668675/
Another site I found is a UK based charity that appears to teach how to make and use top bar hives. However the donation process is a little complicated since they are not a US charity and thus I have to give to a US based charity with the instructions for them to make a grant to the bee charity.
http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/index
I may have to listen to the podcast again to see if I can find the name of her group.
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