The idea
I was inspired to create this project after I saw pictures of NHS workers' faces and hands after their shifts. Their skin was so chapped and dry that I wondered how I could help in some way.
Having just completed months of developing a Liverpool beeswax balm product this year, I realised the way I could help was to turn this into something useful and helpful at a time when it is most needed.
All ingredients I use are 100% natural, vegan friendly and cosmetically tested for skin safety. The main part of the product that brings it back to Liverpool is the beeswax that has been harvested from hives all over the city.
The worker bees are the ones which make it all possible - to keep their colony going, being nurse bees, protectors, foragers, all time handywomen (workers are all female!) and are in it together than just for themselves. This is what made me think of our city and how, by pulling together, we can, and do, get through anything.
What we'll deliver
- Provide 2000 Liverpool key workers with hand and face balms
- Contract a local unemployed person to help produce the supplies
- Train 50 local young people (online) to learn beekeeping with the aim of them learning practical beekeeping (later)
- This project to be a kickstarter to continue social training and employment in the future
- This project to continue to provide key workers with Liverpool Bee Balms in the future
- Create grow packages for beekeeping students to grow their own pollinator friendly plants
Why it's a great idea
We will provide key workers with needed face and hand balms to help soothe their skin during these difficult times.
By doing so, we will contract a local unemployed young person to help create the products enabling them a step up in life and their environmental career.
If the project can sustain itself, I will extend the contract for the young person to continue to work with B 4 Biodiversity. I will offer them specialist CPD training where they have the opportunity to develop their own learning.
By December 2020, we will have taught 50 young local people beekeeping online in conjunction with our Blackburne House partnership. The aim is to select one student to be contracted to support B 4 Biodiversity beekeeping work and training that will develop their career in the environmental sector in Liverpool (starting spring 2021)
Create an online shop where sales can be made and hand delivered locally or through Royal Mail if further afield
Steps to get it done
- To provide 2000 Liverpool key workers with a Liverpool bee balm by end of 2020
- Delivering online beekeeping training (partnership with Blackburne House) to 50 young Liverpool people by end of 2020
- This balm project to become sustainable by January 2021 and continue to provide balms for Liverpool key workers
- To contract an individual to help deliver the balms as finished products to the end of December 2020
- I will contract a trained young beekeeper (from whom I have taught) for spring 2021 beekeeping support
- Weekly PR and communication updates on social media (Twitter, Instagram and website) to promote this initiative
We work with a number of partners to help deliver this project. These are:
Blackburne House (to deliver beekeeping training to young people aged 14-24)
Community gardens and apiaries with organisations we already work with such as Sefton Libraries, St Michael's Church, Ford Lane Garden and Liverpool University.
We have developed and created a range of balms so the design process has already been completed and cosmetic license achieved. This stage is kickstart the project by providing to the NHS, keep providing to the NHS and create a sustainable social income to train and employ local Liverpool young people.
