The refugee-led group fighting for justice through beekeeping

Kent has been known as the Gar­den of Eng­land for cen­turies. It’s also home to the White Cliffs of Dover, which have become a bat­tle ground for migrant rights in the UK – a sym­bol of hos­til­i­ty as the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment cracks down on asy­lum seek­ers, and a sym­bol of hope for the tens of thou­sands who make the dan­ger­ous jour­ney in small boats across the Chan­nel. The loca­tion, then, is dou­bly apt as the site for Bees & Refugees’ first farm. 

Found­ed by Syr­i­an activist Ali Alzein in 2020 to sup­port new­ly set­tled refugees in Lon­don, Bees & Refugees aims to cre­ate a more sus­tain­able and con­nect­ed world through the art of bee­keep­ing. Now, the envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice organ­i­sa­tion is ren­o­vat­ing a five-acre plot of land, where they will build on their inner-city work of intro­duc­ing bee­keep­ing as a craft and form of ther­a­py to refugees and local communities. 

I vis­it­ed the farm dur­ing its open­ing week­end in August, mak­ing my way from the local train sta­tion and past fields of sheep munch­ing on apples. The farm itself feels like a slice of rur­al par­adise, with its mature trees, res­cued chick­ens scratch­ing in the dirt for bugs, veg­etable patch­es and of course the bright­ly coloured bee hives.

Alzein’s own intro­duc­tion to bee­keep­ing came through his grand­fa­ther, who kept bees on his farm in Syr­ia. When Alzein arrived in the UK as a refugee in 2014, hav­ing fled his home city of Dam­as­cus fol­low­ing the out­break of the Syr­i­an Rev­o­lu­tion, it was his grand­fa­ther who sparked the idea to con­nect with nature.

“It all start­ed when my grand­fa­ther sug­gest­ed I use my gar­den to grow food,” Alzein tells me. ​“I was strug­gling a lot with my men­tal health due to many rea­sons. I ordered a small bee­hive and it was deliv­ered to my West Lon­don apart­ment by Roy­al Mail. It was a typ­i­cal gloomy and grey day, but the sec­ond I opened the box the bee’s buzz filled my gar­den with a beau­ti­ful ener­gy that I haven’t felt in so long. I found myself hav­ing break­fast by the bee­hive every morn­ing, and when I saw how pos­i­tive that was for me I start­ed research­ing the sub­ject and I got obsessed with bees.”

The Kent farm is a way of shar­ing the pos­i­tive ben­e­fits of nature with a wider, often city-based community. 

“We are cre­at­ing a sanc­tu­ary for our com­mu­ni­ty, a sanc­tu­ary for the bees and for all those who vis­it and can enjoy the heal­ing we hope it pro­vides,” says Hei­di Sarah Affi, Direc­tor of Devel­op­ment. ​“We are cre­at­ing a space where those with lim­it­ed access to green space, mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions to nature, relax­ation and alter­na­tive ther­a­pies can gath­er to cre­ate beau­ti­ful rela­tion­ships with their new homes or build new con­nec­tions. Com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tion is a core part of social and emo­tion­al health – we believe com­mu­ni­ty includes the bees.”

There was an atmos­phere of relaxed activ­i­ty at the launch event, where peo­ple could attend a bee­keep­ing work­shop, plant seeds, cre­ate art­work for a ban­ner, play bad­minton or just sit in the sun­shine drink­ing a cup of berry juice whilst lis­ten­ing to dance music and pat­ting Ali’s dog Zaatar.

“I grew up in Dam­as­cus and my grand­pa and his sis­ters owned farms in an area called Al-Ghou­ta, which lit­er­al­ly means ​‘a gar­den filled with water, veg­eta­bles and food trees,’” Ali tells me. ​“Every week­end we used to go there and spend qual­i­ty time with the whole fam­i­ly. At our farm launch, some of the Syr­i­ans who were there said ​‘Thank you for bring­ing Al Ghou­ta to us’ – a com­ment that makes me tear up even now.”

As the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment makes life more dif­fi­cult day by day for both immi­grants to the UK and any­one who wants to pro­tect the nat­ur­al world, Ali believes it’s impor­tant to stay con­nect­ed to one another.

“I think this project is a vehi­cle or a means to cre­ate a strong com­mu­ni­ty that sup­ports refugees, but not only refugees, because our oppres­sors are all inter­con­nect­ed,” he says. ​“We need to realise that all mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties must work togeth­er to fight back. We want to use our plat­forms to advo­cate for social jus­tice for all. Bees & Refugees is not just about bee­keep­ing; it is about rais­ing our voic­es against hos­tile poli­cies that lim­it refugees’ move­ment and access to safety.”

Fol­low Bees & Refugees and find out about future events on Insta­gram.

All pho­tos shot on film by Rebec­ca Thomas and devel­oped / scanned by Labyrinth Pho­to­graph­ic.