Tasting organic wildflower honey, sleeping in yurts and long walks through eastern Turkey’s pristine countryside – each one of these on their own sounds like an enticing activity. But Balyolu, a new tourism venture based in eastern Turkey’s Kars, takes the brilliant step of combining all three into one package, while along the way helping local women earn an income.
The new project is the brainchild of Catherine (Cat) Jaffee, a former Fulbright Scholar who spent 2008-2009 travelling throughout eastern Turkey studying women’s migration experiences and also observing local beekeeping traditions. Thinking that honey making could provide a sustainable solution for helping rural women earn a livelihood, Jaffee last year Jaffee left a job in Washington, DC and moved to Kars to start working on what ultimately turned into Balyolu (“honey road” in Turkish).
I recently sent a list of questions about Balyolu to Burcu Uzer, its sustainable tourism director, to find out more about the newly-launched project and its plans. Our exchange is below:
How was the idea for Balyolu born?
Once Cat moved to Kars she started working with KuzeyDoga, a local nonprofit in wilderness conservation. Additionally, she volunteered with the first EU women's organic beekeeping program in the region, a number of local beekeeping groups and organizations, and many local beekeepers, where she started learning all about how difficult it is to earn money selling honey as a rural woman. Whether it is a lack of marketing skills, access to quality supplies, access to greater markets, a lack of long-term training and support, or the difficulty in producing a large amount of good quality honey on a small local scale - it seems that honey production is actually not that great of investment for providing sustainable rural opportunities for women.
