Empower Maasai Girls in Kenya

Dear friends,

I have just returned from a month long trip to Kenya.  It was an eventful and productive visit, checking in on ours students and their family bomas, meeting with local chiefs and teachers and working with the staff at our MGEF-Kajiado office.

Scholarship Program

MGEF added 16 new Scholars in 2018, 13 primary and three secondary students.  All of these girls’ families were unable to pay for school costs.  Esther is an example of just one Maasai girl who is desperate for an education.  I met Esther during my trip while visiting A.I.C. Girls Primary Boarding School, where 16 of MGEF’s scholarship students are enrolled.  During the visit, the head teacher asked me to meet 10-year old Esther who she learned about from her neighbor, Esther’s mother.  The head teacher explained that her neighbor is the fourth wife of a man who has 28 children and whose family had fallen on very hard times due to the drought.  They once had a thriving herd of cows and goats, but had to sell them out of necessity or lost them due to starvation.  Esther’s mother brought her to the head teacher’s school and said “please take my daughter, make her your maid or send her to school, but if she comes home she will starve.”   This little girl had a twinkle in her eyes and is very smart, so the head teacher accepted her in school.  Without some form of payment though, Esther was facing imminent expulsion from the school.  Esther is now a new MGEF scholarship student.

As of July 2018, MGEF has 137 scholarship students - 51 primary, 36 secondary and 50 enrolled and pending post-secondary students.  We commit to each Scholar until she has the knowledge to enter the workforce in Kenya.  We ensure that the girls are enrolled in appropriate schools, and help secondary school graduates choose career paths, identify post-secondary schools and prepare their applications, all new and different challenges for these young women.  It was a pleasure working with the MGEF-Kajiado staff, including mentoring MGEF’s Scholars.  For example, Apophia, a December 2017 secondary school graduate, came to the office for advice on her next steps.  She proposed taking a course to learn Chinese in six months believing that being a translator would earn her a good living.  The Chinese are very active in Kenya, as they are constructing the railroad from Mombasa to Nairobi and much of the roads and buildings throughout the area. MGEF-Kajiado staff and I talked through her reasoning for wanting to study Chinese, after which she confided that she was concerned because she did not have a clear plan for her future. The discussion then moved on to her academic strengths and true interests, leading her to decide to study finance and business.  Ms. Mereyian, MGEF-Kajiado’s Program Director, gave Apophia brochures of related post-secondary school programs from the office resource library and assured her that together they would help her find and apply to the right school.  Apophia returned the next day full of excitement for her future and spent the morning reviewing finance and business programs with Ms. Mereyian.     

During my trip I met with as many of MGEF’s post-secondary school students as was possible.  I asked each one of them, “Do you see a shift in the attitudes towards girls’ education in your village and community?”  Every one said yes, that their communities are finally beginning to realize they cannot survive solely in their traditional way of life and must educate themselves.  They noted, however, that many old traditions were still ingrained in more remote Maasai areas.  Each woman felt that her education and that of fellow MGEF students have strongly helped change attitudes.  In their home villages, they are now given respect, which is new, but they also face much pressure to get a good job and help support their families.  Their pride in their education is somewhat tempered by the tough job market in Kenya.  Fortunately, many of our upcoming graduates have interned with organizations and companies where they expect to be hired after graduation.   

MGEF’s alumnae continue to impress us.  During my June trip, I awoke one morning in Kajiado with an intense earache. Ms. Ntayia, MGEF-Kajiado Director, recommended an approach they now use when medical issues arise -- call MGEF alumna, Doctor Gloria.  What a proud and amazing feeling it was to have this young confident doctor, who originally came from a small boma and only dreamed of being a doctor, capably diagnose my ear infection and promptly prescribe medicine to fix the problem.     

As doctors, nurses, teachers and business women, our alumnae have become the new warriors of the Maasai, helping their families and communities, and inspiring young girls to follow their dreams.  Each year, our alumnae come to the Mentoring Workshop to share their experiences and encourage the younger MGEF students.  One post-secondary student, Valerie, who will be graduating with a Degree in Business this fall, has volunteered to organize a group of alumnae who will speak about their different careers and offer mentorship to their MGEF sisters interested in their professions.  Valerie said choosing a course of post-secondary study was one of the greatest challenges during her last year of secondary school and she would thus like to be very involved in helping her fellow MGEF sisters in this area. 

Life Skills Workshops (LSWs)

During the first half of 2018, MGEF conducted one LSW that was funded by the Saina Hope Foundation, an NGO from the Netherlands that had heard of MGEF from local Maasai leaders and other NGOs in the area.  The Dutch visitors met with MGEF-Kajiado staff to learn about our LSW program and then requested that we conduct an LSW workshop at the Saina Primary School in the Town of Kajiado which they support.  They were so eager to learn from us that they arranged to personally attend the workshop. The workshop, conducted in May 2018, was very well attended with 103 children participants, most of whom are from the poorest slum areas around Kajiado.  Since all of the school staff wanted to participate, they actually had to hold the workshop on a Saturday, which is very unusual.  The main barriers to education faced by these students, both boys and girls, that were identified during the workshop were peer pressure, negative influences from their environment such as crime and drug abuse, lack of parental support and poverty.

Women’s Business Training (WBT)

This year we followed up on the progress of two WBT Workshops that were conducted in 2017 (Cohorts 9 and 10).  MGEF had refined the approach for our WBT Workshops to mitigate challenges experienced and incorporate participant feedback over the past few years.  This included creating larger teams of women to work collectively on designing and running their businesses.  One benefit of the larger team size was that the women were now eligible to apply for Kenyan government grants to expand their businesses. The follow up showed that the participants of both cohorts are still working in their businesses.  And Cohort 10 is doing so well that in June 2018, with the help of Ms. Mereyian, the participants submitted a proposal for two different government projects.  One project seeks funding for a group of 15 Maasai women to run a sheep and goat rearing business. The other grant was submitted for an Affirmative Action project involving 30 Maasai women to run a business rearing chickens and dairy farming.   Ms. Mereyian is optimistic about their chances of being awarded at least one of the grants. 

MGEF received a small grant for WBT Cohort 4 (from Ilbissil). This group of women participated in a WBT workshop in 2014.  In 2016, while on a trip to Kenya, the donors visited the group on market day. Impressed with the success and drive of these business women, they provided a grant in December 2017 to help the women expand their businesses.  The women then developed a business plan for a new business, with input and advice from the MGEF-Kajiado office.  They proposed buying a large tent to rent for functions such as weddings and graduations.  Tent rental is very popular because there are few affordable event facilities in their area.  One of the team members has donated land to store the tent, and the group, as a collective, have saved enough money from their ongoing businesses to build a storage shed.  The grant will be used to purchase the tent once the storage shed has been built.  Five years ago, these women would never have dreamt they would be in the position to open this new business.  

To watch young frightened and timid girls overcome the obstacles put In front of them and become confident educated young women is an amazing experience.  It is your support that makes this all possible.

With gratitude

Heather McKay