The Maasai Community Partnership Project is a collaboration between the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition (MERC), a grassroots umbrella organization of Maasai human rights and conservation efforts, and Prescott Collegein Arizona, a liberal arts college dedicated to social and environmental justice. The MCPP was created in 2004 by Meitamei Olol Dapash, MERC Executive Director and Mary Poole, Program Coordinator of Cultural and Regional Studies faculty at Prescott College, to support the Maasai community in its efforts to sustain its culture, achieve education, and become politically and economically empowered. It is based in Maasailand, at the MCPP center near Talek in Narok District, and in Prescott and includes many members in Maasailand and Prescott.
The MCPP is made up of many Maasai community members and members of the Prescott college community. Some of these include:
Meitamei Olol Dapash
Meitamei is Co-Director of the Maasai Community Partnership Project, and Adjunct Professor at Prescott College in Arizona, U.S. Meitamei was taken to school at a young age from his home commnity in Narok District and has gone on to use his subequent education to advocate for the rights of the Maasai community and fight the degradation of Maasai culture, economy, and environment as a result of the continued policies of land alienation and cultural annihilation by the independent governments of Kenya and Tanzania. He founded the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition (MERC,) a network of grassroots Maasai organiztions and community leaders, in 1987 at the age of 24. 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)
Daniel Leturesh
Daniel is 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 Maasai Community Partnership Project since its inception and has built the Prescott College field Stuies program in Amboseli. Daniel has been instrumental in securing many vital resources for the Maasai community, including building primary schools, well projects, and advocating for the return of traditional Maasai lands . He has led efforts to reform tourism in Maasailand for over two decades.
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 public relations and media consultant and received her MA in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education from the University of Toronto in 2010. Kaitlin is currently an Instructor at Prescott College teaching courses on gender and sexuality studies and power and ethics in knowledge production.
Joseph Ole Kipila
Program Office at the Maasai Education, Research and Conservation Center in Talek. Kipila is a social worker and community activist who has worked with women’s empowerment and environmental conservation.
Joseph Ole Keiwua
Keiwua is the Manager of the Maasai Education, Research and Conservation Center in Talek, and overseer of construction and all facilities operations.
Courtney Osterfelt
Courtney Osterfelt is the founder and director of the Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough (WEB), an organization that bridges teenage girls in Prescott Arizona with resources and education. WEB is currently collaborating with the Nabolu Girls Centre in Narok, Kenya to help increase the access of Maasai girls to education through scholarships and the construction of a new center to house girls who left their homes in pursuit of education. Courtney is finishing her Masters Degree in Social Activism at Prescott College.
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.
