Gender Equality Kenya Project #49801

Keep Maasai Girls Learning in Kenya

by For the Good

Project Report | Oct 17, 2023
October 2023: Update From the Field

By Kate Lapides-Black | Director of Communications

A young friend in Mausa. Photo: Kate Hardaker 2023

WE ARE EXPANDING!

Earlier this year we began expanding our work to Naikarra, an area of just over 1,000 square-miles that borders the Loita Hills region we currently work in and where the population is likewise predominantly Maasai. Naikarra has a high percentage of girls that are out-of-school, and no affordable day school currently exists across the entire region. Our Intern Coordinator, Christine Mpoe, is originally from Naikarra and returned there in August with her new husband. Christine's own incredible journey as a child there affords her deep insight into the profound challenges that girls face in this region, insight that will be invaluable as she guides our needs assessment in Naikarra and helps us train new interns to begin identifying and enrolling out-of-school children there.

ENROLLMENTS CONTINUE TO GROW IN THE LOITA HILLS

Approximately 30-35% (2000-2500) of the primary school-aged children in the Loita Hills region were out-of-school when we re-initiated our enrollment program there after schools reopened from COVID-closures in 2021. Our team of incredible young Maasai interns have now enrolled 1,385 of these children into the classrooms of our 27 partner primary schools in Kenya. Our interns continue to track these children once they are enrolled, following up with their teachers and families to ensure they are continuing to attend. To date, nearly 75% of the children whom our interns have enrolled into schools since 2021 remain there, a very high rate of sustained enrollment for this remote rural region.

ANOTHER NEW HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETED IN THE LOITA HILLS

In August we celebrated the completion of another new secondary school, this time in the village of Olmesutie. Olmesutie was one of the first four schools we originally began working to open in the Loita Hills back in 2020-2021. Olmesutie's celebration was an especially joyful one, with the community deeply proud of the role they played in building this school. A handful of donors whose support was especially critical to Olmesutie's new classrooms were able to join us for the school's opening day celebration.

Each of our new secondary schools in Kenya are the result of 50-50% partnerships we create with existing primary schools and local communities: The community sets a goal to collectively fundraise for, and then we match their efforts 100%, offering additional support to communities experiencing extra hardships. We remain mindful, every day, that our ability to support these schools – and do all our work in Kenya – is only possible thanks to the generosity of countless people who decide to make a difference in the lives of a lot of hopeful girls across the world. Thank you for being part of the global community that makes these schools –– and our other work in Kenya –– possible through your, generously, empathy and caring.

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Jun 27, 2023
June 2023: Update From the Field

By Kate Lapides-Black | For the Good Communications Director

OLMESUTIE’S DAY SECONDARY SCHOOL NEARS COMPLETION!

Our new secondary schools are built through partnerships with existing primary schools and villages in Kenya. The community sets a fundraising goal and then we offer a 100% funding match and help guide their construction efforts. Later, after seeing the tangible progress of the finished classrooms, local government officials will often kick in to help finish a final needed classroom or lab space.

Inspired by the success of the community of Mausa, which celebrated their new secondary school opening in February, the village of Olmesutie finished fundraising for their school in March and broke ground on their final classrooms in April. Supported by our matching funds, they’ve now nearly completed their third classroom and the science lab and administrative space required by the Kenyan government to officially register and begin supporting their new secondary school. We are incredibly happy and grateful to see this school finally come to fruition, as it will allow the many bright and motivated students in the Olmesutie region to finish high school.

PLANTING TREES FOR SUSTAINABILITY

To offset the harvesting of local trees used in new classroom construction, we are partnering with our partner school communities to replant five tree seedlings for every tree cut to build new classrooms. Most seedlings are native trees; we also purchase a handful of fruit trees at each school to help feed local families. For the Good purchases the seedlings and the community plants them and takes responsibility to nurture them into maturity. On the last day of May, the students, teachers, and community members of the village of Mausa, along with our staff, planted 100 tree seedlings near the school. Several days later, students and teachers at Olmesutie did the same.

We’re heartened by the caring of these awesome young people, their parents, and teachers. Every small act of restoration matters, and little by little, they add up to heal the planet as they also transform our own lives. Our relationship with the planet is reciprocal, and, in the words of one of our favorite writers, Robin Wall Kimmerer, “As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us."

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For the Good's website

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Mar 2, 2023
For the Good Programs Update: February 2023

By Kate Lapides-Black | For the Good Communications Director

Naserian with children at the new preschool, 2022.

Since we began our work in Kenya’s Loita Hills four years ago, we have been continually humbled by the way communities come together on behalf of their children time and again. Every accomplishment of our organization in this remote, rural region has truly been thanks to the effort of countless others. Every inch of progress has been powered by your generosity as well as by the grit, persistence and vision of our staff and interns and the headteachers, parents and leaders in the villages where we work.

Over the past year, we watched Mausa, one of the most isolated and struggling communities we work with, raise 1.5 million Kenya shillings –– the equivalent of $12,000 USD, an enormous amount for a rural village, to help build a secondary school amidst a severe drought. We also swelled with pride as three of our new Team Angaza interns –– Anne, Emily and Naserian, opened preschools in their villages. Each did so on their own initiative after observing the large numbers of children in their respective communities who were too small to safely walk 5-10 KM to the nearest government ECD (early childhood development center). We’ve been humbled after learning that many of these same interns and also our staff –– nearly all young mothers themselves –– often pay the school fees of other young girls in their villages when they see their own mothers struggling to feed them, all so they can stay in school.

One of the more beautiful aspects of Maasai culture is the high value placed on communal wellbeing, and the countless ways women help each other in the absence of an official social safety net. “As Maasai women, we have gone through many difficult things,” explains Christine Mpoe, our Intern Coordinator. “Our own struggles allow us to open [our] hearts and share to help others. When I see someone in trouble, my heart will not be in peace. They –– the girls we help –– will eventually be the light we wish to see in Maasai land. I am hoping that later, they will likewise help others.”

You can read more about the many inspiring ways that communities came together for each other and partnered with us to create change for girls in Kenya last year in our 2022 Annual Report, coming out at the end of February. Our 2022 report, and all other past annual reports, can be found through this link.Thank you, as always, for being the generous engine that powers this work.

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