We are heavily reliant on bees and life without them would be very different. This is why bee advocacy is extremely important nowadays. Advocacy for bees can be directly about bees or focused on a dependency with which bees are themselves reliant.
Advocate is a person who speaks or writes in support of something. A lot of celebrities are looking to use their fame and influence to make a real difference in the world.
Angelina Jolie is widely considered one of the film industry’s most successful and famous stars. Jolie’s humanitarian work has received a lot of attention because of her partnering with the U.N. She built her reputation as an advocate for global human rights and women empowerment. Recently, the actress joined UNESCO and French perfume company Guerlain to jumpstart the Women for Bees program.
"I’m personally very proud of the “Women for Bees” Guerlain x UNESCO programme which manages to combine two core pillars of our Maison’s strong commitment, In the Name of Beauty: Bees conservation on one side and women empowerment on the other side, a pledge for one of the nature’s most precious wonder & a concrete positive social impact for women of the world.
Véronique Courtois, Guerlain Chief Executive Officer
Woman for bees is global female beekeeping entrepreneurship program that will send 10 women each year “to a 30-day accelerated training course” in beekeeping at the Observatoire Français d’Apidologie’s (OFA) Domaine de la Sainte-Baume in Provence, France. After five years, the 50 total course participants will gain a solid foundation of beekeeping skills.
Focusing on local and native bees, their welfare and maintenance, as well as education on bees, the programme aims to enable women’s empowerment through an expertise-driven sustainable professional activity. It also aims to contribute to raising awareness of the importance of all bee species as pollinators.
The initiative will involve UNESCO’s biosphere reserves located in areas such as Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, France, Italy, Russia, Rwanda and Slovenia. About 2,500 hives are set to be built within 25 UNESCO biosphere reserves in the next four years. The project promotes beekeeping based on traditional and local knowledge and practices, and focuses on local species and races of bees, which participates in the restauration of native bee populations and pollinator and plant diversity.
Angelina Jolie will personally meet with the female beekeepers and track their progress.
Here is a video posted by Vogue, fashion and lifestyle magazine, where Angelina Jolie teams up with Guerlain, OFA, and UNESCO to help save the bees:
On the occasion of World Bee Day last year, Jolie covered herself in bees and posed for a striking photoshoot for National Geographic (and Guerlain) whom she also gave an interview on the subject matter. In the photos, bees can be seen crawling peacefully over Angelia - an elegant way to imply that the little creatures are harmless if you attend to them with care.
Advocacy seeks to ensure that all people in society are able to make sure their voices are heard. Actively raising awareness on the issue of protecting bees is how society can make changes and help the environment to heal.
A portion of every purchase at Bee Kind Shop is donated to non-profit organizations that help save bee colonies around the globe.
