Thazin Nwe and her husband shared a small farming land with their parents and were surviving on less than $40 of family income per month. With 2 small children, she and her husband were struggling until she joined TAG’s first training cohort to become a beekeeper.

When Thazin Nwe was unable to participate full-time in the beekeeping business because it required her to leave her family and go on migration six months of the year to follow the honey flow seasons, she brought her husband into the business and soon beekeeping grew into their family business with her husband managing the beehives.

From the initial 35 hives given to them by TAG, they now own more than 200 hives and have a steady income of several hundred dollars per month.  Instead of managing the day-to-day beekeeping, Thazin became a Youth Leader in the E3/YouthSparks TAG-Microsoft program and worked in the Plan Bee’s regional cooperative Center, the Apiculture Resource Business Center, established as part of the Plan Bee project. 

Thazin rose to lead Plan Bee’s entire microenterprise program, which supports local women and youth across 29 villages to develop their own businesses.   Thazin also uses the computer skills she learned as the E3 Youth Leader to track all business activities and report to Tag’s Monitoring and Evaluation team. She is excited to help other young people who grew up in villages with little access to knowledge and technical skills development access jobs or start businesses.