Empower Maasai Girls in Kenya

This Fall Update letter comes on the heels of my return from a very productive trip to Kenya. During this trip, I visited some of the more distant schools attended by our Scholarship Program students and worked with MGEF’s excellent Kajiado Office staff to prepare for upcoming Woman’s Business Training (WBT) Workshops. The WBT Program, one of MGEF’s Community Education Program (CEP) activities, is provided for rural Maasai women who have little or no education and live in extreme poverty. They are taught the basic concepts of setting up and running a business and are then given seed money to open their own businesses. To date, 240 women have attended MGEF’s business training workshops, and 219 are still active businesswomen—a 91% success rate.   These workshops not only directly benefit the financial well-being of the women and their families, by providing income for food, health care and schooling, but also dramatically increase their confidence and feeling of self-worth.. We are very excited to have recently received a grant to conduct additional WBT Workshops over the next several months.

I was also extremely excited and proud to be able to visit with some MGEF Scholarship students who are finishing up their post-secondary degrees and graduating this December. I was very fortunate to have been invited to lunch at the boma of Nancy, who will be receiving a Bachelor of Environmental Health Degree and has a job awaiting her upon graduation. She impressed me with the egg and chicken business she started during her last year of school. Nancy showed me her chicken coop in which she had 100 egg producing chickens (bought as baby chicks) and which she is now getting ready to sell as broiler chickens. She will reinvest the proceeds into 100 more chicks and has future plans to expand her egg and chicken business in the future.

I also had the pleasure of visiting with Gloria for dinner, whom we have spoken of in previous update letters. She will be graduating from medical school and will become MGEF’s first doctor. After her eight week rotation in the Washington DC area last fall, she fell in love with radiology which is a much needed expertise in Kenya. After graduation, she will conduct a one year residency at the hospital in Kajiado, not far from our MGEF Kajiado office. In her future she envisions opening a clinic in her hometown area.

Another MGEF student, Abigael, will also graduate this December with a degree in Agricultural Science and Natural Resource Management. From 2004 through 2012, Abigael was an MGEF Scholarship student. In 2012, MGEF was so proud to learn that she had received a full scholarship to the EARTH University in Costa Rica. This week, Abigael will be in Washington, DC as a scholar participating in the Global Youth Opportunities Summit! After the conference, we will be celebrating her accomplishments with MGEF supporters.

When I arrived in Kenya earlier this month, MGEF was providing scholarships to 121 Maasai girls and young women (42 primary, 40 secondary, 35 post secondary and four pending post secondary). But during my visit to the St. Clare School in Loitokitok, we added another secondary student to our roster. The Head Teacher requested that we take on this student as she was very bright but had been in and out of school because of a lack of school fees. Her father had asked the school to please find a sponsor because she was a burden on the family’s meager income and as a result, he was going to have to marry her off. He wanted his daughter to attend school but his hands were tied. I decided to immediately add her to the roster, knowing that Tracey Pyles, MGEF President and daughter of its Founder, Barbara Shaw, would concur.   The headmaster told us as we left that the student had received the news and would be back at school that afternoon. In addition, MGEF has also already accepted seven new applicants who will start school in January 2017.

We are very grateful to all of our sponsors and supporters. To see three confident, promising Maasai women, all supported by MGEF, graduate post-secondary school makes all of our work and your support worth every cent.

Thank you