Many people in the Maasai community consider the particular challenges faced by women and girls to be their top priority, and we are committed to supporting their efforts. Maasai women are especially disadvantaged in their access to formal education and other opportunities to develop leadership in the world outside of Maasailand. Because such a miniscule percentage of Maasai women have received formal education, and therefore they do not speak English, Swahili and other more widely used languages, Maasai women are as a group even more excluded from participating in decisions that impact their lives—made by the Kenyan government and education policy makers, for example—than are Maasai men. For this reason, our project is dedicated to following the lead of Maasai women and supporting their visions.
The Women Empowerment Program was created to support the particular challenges faced by Maasai women as they struggle to educate their children and achieve economic stability for their communities. These challenges are great. Maasai people typically do not have access to clean water, and women spend the majority of many of their days carrying water home from distant rivers and boreholes. The community faces hunger during drought times, and women go without to feed their children. Their main avenue to earning money is by selling beads but women are often cheated out of profits by middlemen because, as they are not educated, they cannot protect their own interests. But Maasai women have vision about what needs to be done. They want education for their children, boys and girls. They want beading cooperatives to fairly sell and distribute their work. They want affordable clinics. And they want water, above all, to improve the health of their communities and free up their time to earn money for school fees and other needs. Maasai women are committed to the survival of their communities and right to determine their ways of life, and we support their efforts. The Maasai Community Partnership Project collaborates with a variety of outside organizations to fund water projects that are overseen by local boards composed of Maasai men and women. We support the improvement of schools in Maasailand and find scholarships for children in the greatest need. And we support beading cooperatives and other small businesses designed by women. In July, 2010, the MCPP opened a Women’s Empowerment Center at the Maasai Education, Conservation and Research Institute near Talek, Masai Mara. Contributions to this work are greatly appreciated.
Leadership Development
One of the Maasai community’s top priorities has been to support women students who, against the odds, have succeeded to prepare themselves for university education. For the past several years much of this effort has been directed to supporting the education and vision of Sekeyian Yiaile, a Maasai activist working to educate Maasai girls. Sekeyian is currently finishing her Master’s Thesis at Prescott College, a detailed study of a health organization in Maasailand which suggesting ways in which NGOs can work more effectively with Maasai communities. Sekeyian has built two primary schools for girls at Lemek and Talek, both with beautiful facilities, trained teachers, and several hundred children in grades 1 and 2. She has also created feeding programs in rural schools.
Primary Schools
The project also provides scholarships to girls, and other occasional institutional support, to Siana, a model Massai primary school that offers culturally supportive and high quality education to Maasai students, and to Erusiai Primary School: both have won recent awards for Most Improved School in their respective districts.
Research to Support Maasai Girls
IN 2007, Prescott College researchers investigated Tasaru, a large “safe” house located in Narok, funded by U.S. based NGOs. Following interviews with Maasai girls who had fled Tasaru, they found broad evidence of corruption in this program, and of abuse of the Maasai girls living there. This tragedy significantly increased the mistrust of the Maasai community in regard to girls’ education. The report was made available to the community leadership and efforts made to make the donors aware.
Collaboration with WEB
In response to the findings about Tasaru, and in support of more positive efforts, the MCPP is facilitating a partnership between Nabalu in Narok with the Women’s Empowerment Breakthrough (WEB), a feminist student initiated Prescott College organization that works to educate and empower teenage girls in Prescott. Nabalu takes in run-away Maasai girls, finds them scholarships and provides safety, while helping them re-establish ties with their communities. This program is completely Maasai initiated and led. WEB currently is raising funds to build a new facility for the girls at Nabalu. For more information, please contact Courtney Osterfelt at costerfelt@prescott.edu
