BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

This campaign is to fund raise for Kelulut Entrepreneurship Program which is a community  service program organized by Beelivin, a group of MBA students, from Graduate School of Business, National University of Malaysia (UKM-GSB). This program is one of our initiative to alleviate urban poverty in Putrajaya, Malaysia. We believe that this initiative will make a difference in fighting urban poverty. 

Our target group for this project is the urban poor and undeprivileged community in Putrajaya. Putrajaya is the federal territory of Malaysia and it ranks second in terms of state/territory with highest median monthly household income in Malaysia which is around RM8,275 per month. There is 16.4% of Malaysian population which belongs to Bottom 40 (B40) group and the average monthly household income for B40 is RM2,848. Since two-third of Malaysian lives in urban area, urban poverty has become a serious issue which needed special attention. 

Urban poverty can be categorized into three: the new poor, borderline poor and chronic poor. The new poor is caused by work termination by private sector or public institution. The borderline poor are individuals or family who work in the urban area but do not possess any skills. They work normally in manufacturing or service industries and their monthly income is above poverty threshold. However, if there is increase in price of goods, they will fall below the poverty threshold. The chronic poor are those who are very poor and increase of urban living cost would further deteriorate their quality of living.

The aim of this program is to aid and educate the poor and underprivileged community by providing them skill development training and opportunities to earn additional and sustainable source of income through Kelulut beekeeping. The program will be offered to 20 participants who belongs to poor & underprivileged community surrounding Presint 14, Putrajaya, Malaysia. The contribution will be used to help financing the cost of the program including Kelulut beekeeping training and assistance to start-up Kelulut bee keeping farm including supplying them with 20 Kelulut hives, pumps for honey extraction.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

PROGRAM DETAILS

Organizer: Beelivin and UKM-Graduate School of Business (UKM-GSB)

In collaboration with: Seri Tiang Honey Farm & Surau Al-Manar, Presint 14, Putrajaya

Date: 14th July 2018

Training location: Surau Al-Manar, Presint 14, Putrajaya

Farm location: Reserved area next to Surau Al-Manar

Participants: 20 participants from poor & underprivileged community

Training module:

1) Introduction & Kelulut Beekeeping Techniques

2) Modular Hive Concept & Expansion Techniques

POTENTIAL OF KELULUT

Kelulut belongs to the family of Meliponini which is a type of sting-less bee. Major products of Kelulut are honey, pollen (beebread) and propolis which can be sold to generate income. We target to contribute 20 Kelulut hives for the target group. Kelulut Entrepreneurship Program requires a long term commitment from each participant to participate in beekeeping, harvesting, marketing and expansion of the hive to generate sustainable source of income.
In a month, a Kelulut hive can potentially produce 0.5kg of honey which can be sold at RM200/kg and 0.3kg of pollen (beebread) which can be sold at RM250/kg. The most valuable product of Kelulut is raw propolis which can be used to make products such as soap and lip balm.

Number of Kelulut hives can be further expanded through baiting, bridging, splitting and duplicating techniques. Hence this would enable participant to increase the number of Kelulut hives over time. We estimated about 50% growth rate for the number of Kelulut hives every six months.

Initial sales for first six month is RM 3,500 per month with 20 hives.  After two years, we estimated that the number of hive will grow to 68 hives and this would contribute on sales of RM11,800 per month. The profit of the sales will be distributed among the 20 participants. Upon maximizing the existing land usage, participants might need to find a new location which is suitable for Kelulut beekeeping for further expansion. 

PROJECT EXPENSES

The project costs around RM28,000 and major expenses for this projects are: 

1. Training program such as training fees, course material and meals
2. Establishment of Kelulut farm which includes purchase of 20 Kelulut hives, 2 honey extraction pump, modular hives and installation work

We are targeting to raise RM12,000 through this platform and remaining amount will be raised through international crowdfunding platform. Your donation can make a difference in the life of these 20 families. Together let's help to make their life better.

PROJECT TEAM

Beelivin project team consists of postgraduates students from UKM-Graduate School of Business (UKM-GSB) undertaking Master of Business Administrations (MBA). 

As part of MBA syllabus under MBA project, we are required to execute an activity or a program that can give charitable benefits to the society and nation as whole. This is inline with UKM’s Bidang Keberhasilan Utama (BKU) on high involvement culture which is to increase the involvement of UKM students in community project through innovative program across the fields.

Our team is working closely with:

1) Entrepreneurs from Seri Tiang Honey Farm in Presint 14 to provide training on Kelulut beekeeping techniques & modular hive concept

2) Local authorities such as Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (MAWIP) in providing the namelist of asnaf (a category of recipients who is entitled for zakat, inclusive of the poor and underprivileged community)

3) Surau Al-Manar, Presint 14, Putrajaya and local community in organizing the event

The team with Tuan Haji Fadzil Mohamad Ghazali who is a Kelulut entrepreneur and the founder of Seri Tiang Honey Farm. He will be one of our trainer for the program. 

Mr Zainol is a Kelulut beekeping hobbyist and a resident of Presint 14 and he was explainingbeekeeping procedures to Beelivin team members.

We have also visited nearby Kelulut farm to source for the Kelulut hives and to learn about Kelulut products and marketing. 

KELULUT HIVES TYPE

Conventionally, Kelulut beekeeping involves ordering the log which contain the Kelulut colony from supplier, cutting down the log from the tree, installing the topping and then harvesting the honey. This would create several issues such as uncontrollable tree cutting which would change the forest ecosystem, difficulties of sourcing new colony, inconsistent quality of Kelulut colony and lacking of systematic Kelulut breeding center. The hive in below picture is a combination of log, modular hive and topping. 

Modular hive is a new approach for Kelulut beekeeping and it has undergone researched for many years and it has won Gold and Special Award due to the innovation that it brings for the Kelulut beekeeping. This would address the issues that we mentioned earlier.

Using this techniques Tn Hj Fadzil, our trainer, had managed to expand from 1 kelulut hives into 30 hives in two years. This is the knowledge that will be shared to our participant who belongs to the poor & underprivileged community nearby Presint 14. We hope that this little effort from us would alleviate urban poverty issue by providing them the skill development & opportunities to earn a sustainable additional source of income through Kelulut beekeeping.

CONTACT US

Among the risks for Kelulut beekeeping projects are the attacks from predators and theft. In the training, participant will also be taught on predators attack such as ants and the measures to prevent or overcome it. 

There are a few initiatives which can be taken to prevent theft. The hive could either be hung high on the tree, mounted onto a concrete footing or by locking the hives.