“Before,” remembers Rose Aguti, from eastern Uganda, “the children were all malnourished, and they couldn’t go to school. My soil was exhausted.”

But Rose has transformed her life with a cow from Send a Cow, plus training in natural organic farming. The cow provides milk for the children to drink, and to sell, and manure which has transformed Rose’s land.

“Now I have a reason to live,” she says. “My children are in school and happy.”

“Without beekeeping,” says Christopher Mensah Vigah, “my life would have been miserable.”

Christopher was left an orphan at the age of 10, and struggled alone to feed himself and stay on at school. A kindly neighbour helped him to start beekeeping, using traditional tree-trunk beehives. But his life really began to buzz when he received training in beekeeping and improved beehive construction.

Ten years on, Christopher has more than 45 beehives, and sells over 300 litres of honey a year. He’s bought more land, and he faces the future with confidence. Not bad for a former 10-year-old orphan – and it’s all thanks to his bees.