Empower Maasai Girls in Kenya

Dear friends,

Happy New Year!

MGEF began the new year with an unprecedented 152 students on its roster.  The office was bustling last week as 42 primary, 50 secondary, 3 vocational and 41 post-secondary students stopped by the office to pick up supplies for their first semester of the new school year.  Many of the 16 pending post-secondary students also came by with the results of their Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams and for advice on applying to institutions of higher learning.  All were excited to get back to work after the long almost two-month holiday.

We are very proud of the success stories of the 2022 school year, especially our 56 graduations from primary, secondary or post-secondary schools!  Kenya’s unusual school schedule last year (due to the pandemic) included two Term 3’s, one ending in April and the other ending in December. In April 2022, we had 8 primary, 16 secondary and 4 post-secondary students graduate.  This past December, 14 primary, 12 secondary and 2 post-secondary students graduated.  MGEF is honored to recognize the accomplishments of every one of these girls.

Many of our students are the first girls or children in their family to receive a primary or secondary education much less a degree from a university.  This year, we celebrated our third medical student who enrolled at the University of Nairobi; she will be our first student to specialize in surgery.  Many others have become nurses, teachers, nutritionists, business women and the list goes on.  

Our Scholarship Program is need based, meaning that all of our students have faced great obstacles to get an education.  The girls’ stories are compelling accounts of challenge and dogged perseverance, whether to become the first female Maasai lawyer in Kenya or simply to have a profession that can provide financial independence and feed a family.  One such example is a student named Emily.

Emily has been a determined girl since childhood.  She performed above average in school and enjoyed learning.  Emily ran away from home in 2008 at the age of 12 when she discovered that her mother had scheduled Emily’s circumcision.  Emily was able to finish primary school while living at a rescue center.  She then managed to make it through Form 2 (10th grade) with money from well-wishers, though she was often sent home due to lack of school fees.  She could not raise the necessary money for Form 3, and at that time, her family would not allow her to return home, saying that she was bad luck because she refused to be circumcised.  Completely on her own, she searched diligently for a scholarship.  Someone mentioned MGEF and she found the local board member and applied.  She was accepted into the Scholarship Program in 2016 at the age of 20 to return to school for Form 3 (11th grade).  

Emily graduated from high school in 2018.  She planned to continue her education but was thwarted when she got pregnant.  An old Maasai tradition, still believed by many, is that if you have a baby and you are not circumcised, the child is of the devil and will bring bad luck to the family.  Her family still would not take her back unless she underwent female genital cutting (FGC) before she gave birth.  Medical concerns alone kept Emily from undergoing FGC which is usually done with a dirty knife by an older local Maasai woman.  Since she refused, she knew she was still on her own.  Emily had twin girls and managed to keep them fed, sheltered and clothed with the help of friends and wells wishers.  Emily knows that without continuing her education, the future will be bleak for her and her little girls, but she put her plans on hold until her girls were old enough (three years old) to be accepted to stay at a children’s home while she returned to school.  Emily enrolled in school this month to begin her post-secondary course in Dietetics and Nutrition.  Despite daunting obstacles, Emily has continued to fight for the right to an education and to choose what happens to her body.  Helping women like Emily surmount challenges and reach for their dreams of an education and independence is what our mission is all about. 

MGEF is excited to be able to conduct all four types of our Community Education Programs this year: Life Skills Workshops, a Women’s Business Training Workshop, a Mentoring Day for Graduated Secondary Students and our Annual Mentoring Workshop and Parent Meeting. Importantly, we want to highlight that our very own MGEF Alumnae conduct or participate in all of these Community Education Programs!

We will conduct six Life Skills Workshops (LSWs) this month at various primary/junior high schools in the Central Division of Kajiado County. The LSWs present information and teach participants about barriers to education among the Maasai, including traditional cultural practices such as FGC, forced marriage and early pregnancy.  To date, 16,273 Maasai girls, boys, women and men have attended MGEF’s LSWs.  

We will also conduct MGEF’s 12th Women’s Business Training (WBT) Workshop this year, which provides training, mentoring and seed grant money to 30 women.  The 30 women divide into six groups of five people, and each group creates their own business.  We were so excited to see the positive impacts of our 11th WBT Workshop last year that we decided to do another this year.  MGEF alumna Esther Lemanyi, who conducted last year’s workshop, is very pleased to facilitate the workshop again this year.  She truly loved watching the women quickly learn and execute their business plans.  This workshop is an important lifeline to Maasai women who are desperate to help their families as they struggle to put food on the table and cope with the ongoing drought in Kenya. 

In 2022, MGEF conducted its first Mentoring Day for Graduated Secondary Students.  It was such a huge success that we decided to make this an annual workshop for our older students.  We had a guest speaker from the Vision Empowerment Training Institute in Kenya last year, and we are working now on speakers for the upcoming workshop.  Much of the mentoring at the workshop was provided by our alumnae who work closely with their younger MGEF sisters.  Since MGEF now has alumnae in so many professions, the younger students benefit tremendously from their life experiences and career advice.  

Of course, our Mentoring Workshop and Annual Parent Meeting will return next year in December.  We are thrilled that Kenya’s school schedule has finally returned to its usual timeline (i.e., Term 1 begins in early 2023 and Term 3 ends in late 2023).  Once again, the Mentoring Workshop will be entirely facilitated by MGEF alumnae, all well-educated Maasai women. Topics discussed include current challenges facing Maasai girls such as teen pregnancy and school dropout, reproductive health, setting realistic educational goals, and career planning.  The Parent Meeting will be organized and facilitated by our dedicated Kajiado staff as well as alumnae.  

We look forward to another year of achievements!  Thank you for your support of these wonderful girls and young women as they work so hard to improve their lives.