Empower Maasai Girls in Kenya

Dear friends,

The MGEF-Kajiado office was very busy at the end of August, with students stopping by and picking up their supplies for Term 3. The roster this year has stayed at a robust 160 active students, with 34 primary, 66 secondary, 2 vocational, 56 post-secondary and 2 pending post-secondary waiting for acceptance to an institution of higher learning. 

At the end of this term, MGEF will have much to celebrate. 12 students will graduate junior high school and move on to secondary schools, and six secondary students will receive their high school diplomas and decide what the next step of their educational journeys will be.

We are also very excited to report that our second medical doctor will graduate from the University of Nairobi this December!  Caroline received her Degree in Nursing in 2013, and worked as a nurse for four years before she decided to go back to school and become a doctor.  She hopes to one day open her own practice. We are so proud to have been a part of her journey to make her dream finally come true. 

MGEF also celebrated four additional graduations from other post-secondary level students this year: three students received diplomas, and one a degree. Zainab received her diploma in Nursing, Christine in Banking and Finance, and Katherine in Diet and Nutrition.  Grace received her degree in Procurement and Logistics. One of the biggest enjoyments of being a part of MGEF is watching these students persevere to reach their goals of an education.  

Life Skills Workshops

We were fortunate to be able to hold six Life Skills Workshops (LSWs) for adults in the Mashuuru Division of Kajiado County. In the first half of the workshop, the women and men were separated so that they would feel free to ask questions and address issues more openly. The women discussed topics including their roles in the family structure, the importance of teaching their daughters how to care for themselves, the benefits of education, the importance of maintaining ownership of their land, and how to be proactive in managing their children’s schooling. The men’s main topics were similar, but additionally focused on their responsibility to teach their sons to be good to women, education of both boys and girls and that they too should be involved with the management of their children’s schools.  At the end of the meeting, the women and men gather together to discuss what they’ve learned, with an emphasis on addressing how to ensure their children are able to stay in school. All agreed that the problems of early pregnancy, lack of school fees, and lack of parental involvement were the main contributing factors to students dropping out – all factors MGEF is working hard to reduce.  A growing number of these Maasai adults are beginning to see that educating a girl is just as beneficial as a boy: in fact, many remarked that their educated daughters tended to use their financial success to provide for their parents much more than their sons typically did.

In the Maasai community, land is almost always owned by the men in the family, even if it was inherited from the wife’s family.  If there is a divorce, the woman has historically been forced to give up the land regardless. Therefore, the man of the house has had the ability to sell the land out from under the family without the woman’s opinion or consent. However, newer legislation now says that the woman of the house must co-sign the agreement. While there is a chance that social norms may take a while to progress as the law has, this legal breakthrough will at least give the woman an opportunity to advocate for keeping the land that will ultimately be beneficial to her and her family.

Women’s Business Training

Our new program director, Esther, was able to visit four of the eleven cohorts of our Women’s Business Training (WBT) workshops.  Many Kenyans lost jobs or even their small businesses during the countrywide shutdown due to COVID, and the Maasai community has additionally faced long and severe droughts. We are very impressed with the 120 women who regrouped and adjusted their businesses to adapt to the pandemic and drought alike. They managed to stay afloat, and are now even looking to expand their businesses!  We will be working with each cohort to help them take the next steps needed to grow their businesses.

MGEF looks forward to a busy fall and winter with our students, planning our next LSWs for children, working with the 120 businesswomen, and continuing to strive towards bringing a brighter future to all Maasai girls and their communities.

Thank you so much for your support.  

Heather McKay