I have recently come back from an incredible couple of weeks in Madagascar. It's a land full of contrasts with unique wildlife and beautiful landscape, but it's also home to some of the poorest people in the world.

During my time there I visited Project Lanirano run by Azafady on behalf of the Innocent Foundation. Azafady are a small NGO based in the south east of Madagascar and they do some fantastic work to alleviate poverty in the area and create more sustainable livelihoods for the local people.

Project Lanirano is an initiative that has two main aspects: an urban side, and a rural side. The urban element of the project assists women in making their small businesses more profitable, and the rural side teaches farmers new agricultural methods.

I think the best way to tell the story of my visit is to talk you through some good ol' pics:

Day 1

Here are some women receiving small business training. Many of the group were illiterate before they started so their progression has been immense.

I met a number of women who had already benefited from the small grants for their business. They told me their stories and it was incredible to hear how such a small amount of money can have such an enormous impact on their lives. The lady on the right gave me a zebu statue as a gift, which I clearly seem happy about but not sure she was quite so pleased by the look on her face.

This woman told me that because of the business grant she was now able to afford to feed her family 3 meals-a-day.

I spent the afternoon looking at a flash spreadsheet that held some frightening data about the women's income & expenditure. The average member of the group is living on 4p per day.

Day 2

This is me and Latena (Head of Sustainable Livelihoods for Azafady), just before we embarked on a bumpy mission out to the bush. Despite my smile I was feeling rather ill, having been up all night being sick. Not ideal.

This didn't deter me from visiting the rural side of the project where I watched a lesson in how to compost.

The locals have also started to grow their vegetable patch to get more variety in their diet.

After chatting to some of the locals about the new methods, my illness had finally caught up with me and I needed to go back to the Jeep to crash out.

The work Azafady are doing is making a huge impact on people's lives in Madagascar. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to see their efforts first-hand.

I recommend checking out their range of volunteering programs, including the community conservation I undertook prior to visiting the foundation project.

I would also like to take the opportunity to say a massive thanks to Samm & Latena and everyone at Azafady - you were amazing.

P.S I couldn't write a blog about Madagascar without including some pictures of Lemurs. So I bid you farewell with a few new friends of mine.

And this happy chap.

Animals are good to look at. We put pictures of animals on our juice labels and write captions to go with them. Check out the mud loving chimp above to see what we mean.

In the summer this photo of a lemur will appear on our next round of juice labels. We want you to write the caption that goes with it, with your words being seen on hundreds of thousands of juice labels.

What is this furry fellow thinking, saying, or looking at? Is he in fact a she? What you write is completely up to you.

We'll print the caption we like best on every single label with a lemur on it later this year. Your words will be read by shed loads of people (probably millions) and you’ll receive international fame, fortune and a hefty delivery of juice and smoothies.

Just post your caption as a comment below. The competition will close at 6pm Thursday 17th March, and we'll announce the winner the following week.

Good luck.

On Saturday, I went along to Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire to meet our bee competition winner Julian, Tim the beekeeper and Neil the Head Gardener for an afternoon of bees, bees and more bees.

Julian, Neil and Tim

We had a tour of the beautiful gardens and grounds from Neil (including the mushroom house) and then Tim gave us an introduction to bee keeping.

Tim has 8 hives at Hanbury Hall which this year yielded 250 jars of honey. He taught us how to hold a frame, how a hive works and how to mark a queen bee when you spot her.

Bee pens

Then it was on with the bee suits

Julian got to wear the suit as paid for by the proceeds of Buy One Get One Bee whilst I had to wear a suit for a 10 year old as there were no adult bee suits left.

Once suited, we then got to inspect the innocent hive and meet some bees.

The innocent hive

After meeting the bees and asking more home beekeeping questions, we all got given a jar of Tim's honey

And then Julian and his wife, Nicky went off for a proper afternoon tea (though sadly the chocolate potato cake had sold out).

We've made a little film of the day (including Tim answering lots of your questions) so watch this space for the official premiere.

For now though, massive thanks to Tim, Neil and the catering staff at Hanbury Hall for such a brilliant afternoon, to Julian and Nicky for being such enthusiastic winners and to my mum for being an excellent camera assistant.

Here's to Buy One Get One Bee coming back again next year.

We love eggs.

We love Ian at Treflach Farm. He makes eggs (not him, obviously, the chickens).

Not only does Ian look after chickens, he looks after pigs too. This makes Ian a very busy man.

Not only does Ian look after chickens and pigs, he also finds the time to teach young'uns about how to look after our environment and how to play nice with animals.

Imagine how busy Ian is.

So being the nice folk we are, we decided to help Ian feed his pigs.

Was this enough?

Apparently not.

To avoid overfeeding smoothies to Ian's pigs (apparently they're just like us and don't like too much of the same thing) and to try and make the doggie relax a little bit, we needed a new way to help.

Luckily for us, Ian and the amazing team at Treflach Farm have already got a few ideas of their own so we decided it best for us to piggy back (sorry) one of theirs instead .

We love the idea of educating others about the birds, the bees, the flowers and the trees. After all, they're making the world a little bit of a better place for all of us.

Behind the scariest dog in the world lies a classroom that Ian and the folk at Treflach could use to run classroom sessions in but it needed a little revamp to get it ship shape.

Now, DIY isn't exactly our forte at innocent but we are pretty handy at fundraising. So with a raffle to win tickets to stay, that's right, stay at Treflach (fancy it?) and a BBQ, we managed to raise a pot of cash to help get the classroom on its way.

How was the BBQ?

Delicious. Treflach's finest of course.

How's the classroom?

Beautiful.

With the classroom ready and waiting for its first pupils in September, we thought it best to let Ian and the gang get back to what they're good at (which is pretty much everything they do) while we get back to what we're good at, making smoothies for everyone - animals included.

So far for piggies we're working on a mud and orange peel recipe.

The monkey range is looking like nuts and bananas, papaya and bananas or simply bananas and bananas.

If you've got any better ideas, post them below and the best one will win a case of our smoothies and a special mystery prize.

(Please note we don't advise you feeding your pets or any other animals smoothies. This is for mild amusement purposes only. We don't get out much).