Meitamei Olol Dapash
Meitamei is a member of the Maasai community from the Narok District of Kenya. He is an outspoken advocate for Maasai people and wildlife conservation in East Africa. As an educated young man he witnessed the degradation of Maasai culture, economy, and environment as a result of colonialism and the continued policy of land alienation and cultural annihilation by the independent governments of Kenya and Tanzania. In 1987 at the age of 24 founded the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition (MERC), a network of grassroots Maasai organizations and community leaders. He has dedicated his life to stopping the illegal appropriation of Maasai people’s traditional lands for commercial development, agriculture, mining, irresponsible tourism operations, indiscriminate clearing of forests, and other forms of development that are destructive to Maasai culture, African wildlife and the delicate habitat they share.
As the Executive Director of MERC’s international office based in Washington D.C., Meitamei represents the interests of Maasai people in the Species Survival Network, Cultural Survival, and at international forums including the CITIES convention (International Trade In Endangered Species). He has taught seminars at Harvard, consulted with the World Bank, spoken on the BBC and Voice of America, and has articles published in numerous publications including Humane Society Magazine, Cultural Survival Quarterly, and the African Wildlife Institute. Through a grassroots network of East African organizations represented by 150 Maasai community leaders, among MERC’s recent progress are a suspension of an environmentally devastating hydro project, release of the Loliondo Report exposing a massive wildlife hunting concession in Tanzania, the Maasai Education Project, a lawsuit to protect the Mau Forest of Mt Kenya, the Amboseli Community Reconciliation Program to resolve conflicts between wildlife and communities around Amboseli National Park, and the Ethical Conduct of Tourism Industry Project. Meitamei ran for Parliament as an ODM-Kenya candidate in the Narok North district of Kenya in 2007. He currently teaches at Prescott College in Arizona and is co-director of the Maasai Community Partnership Project.
Mary Poole
Mary is a Cultural and Regional Studies faculty member at Prescott College teaching in the areas of U.S. history, gender studies, race relations in the U.S., history of East Africa, and Maasai history. Mary has worked in public policy, serving on the staff of the Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee designing fiscal policy for social service programs. She has also served as the Executive Director of Early Options in New York City, a reproductive rights organization. She has been involved with community development work in Africa beginning in the late 1970s. Mary and Meitamei created the Partnership Project in 2004 with the vision of sharing the resources and power of higher education with the Maasai community, and exposing American university students to the perspectives of Maasai people about issues of common concern. Mary earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in U.S. History in 2000, and a B.A. from the Evergreen State College in Education and Political Economy in 1988. She is the author of The Segregated Origins of Social Security: African Americans and the Welfare State (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2006)
Kaitlin Noss
Kaitlin graduated from Prescott College in 2005 with a competence in Education for Community Development. She has been working with the Partnership Project since its inception and is the teaching assistant for the summer field program and the preliminary spring course taught by Meitamei and Mary. She also has worked as a media liaison and Kaitlin began attending the University of Toronto in January, 2009 to pursue her M.A./PhD in Indigenous Education, and will continue to work with the Partnership Project in Kenya.
Daniel Leturesh
Daniel is the chairman of the Olgulului Group Ranch, which surrounds the Amboseli National Park. He is a long-time activist and Maasai leader working with the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition and has been working with the Partnership Project since its inception. Daniel has been instrumental in securing many vital resources for his community, including building primary schools, helping to develop well projects, advocating for the return of traditional Maasai lands and implementing ethical tourism practices within Maasailand.
Daniel (Laitaipa) Kaputa
Daniel is a United Nations Peacekeeper and has served tours in Bosnia and Angola. He is currently serving in the Kenyan military. He is an active member of the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition, and has been working with the Partnership Project since its inception. Kaputa is a recognized Maasai community leader, the logistics director of the field studies program, a rotarian from the Narok North club and is the point-person for the Community Water Project.
Katelyn Cabot
Katelyn graduated from Prescott College in 2006 with a competence in Human Development. As an undergraduate Kate founded the non-profit Safe Haven organization to assist women and children in finding housing for their pets while seeking shelter from domestic abuse. She continued to work as the director of Safe Haven until turning it over to Prescott Community members. She was a participant of the pilot Kenya course in the summer of 2005 and has remained involved with the project since that time, returning to Kenya in 2007 to run the Maasai Field Guide Training Program with Alan Whitehead. Kate currently lives and works in Portland Oregon and is ready to teach the MFGTP again when funding becomes available.
