Promoting women’s empowerment

Background

When we conducted a study in 2006 on Maasai women’s literacy rates we found that 95% of the pastoral women in Kibirashi village couldn’t read or write. Girls, who by chance get an opportunity to attend primary schools often get married soon after finishing because of pressure from their families who regard them as a important source of income. This is because traditionally the husband has to pay a certain amount of cattle to the girls’ family as a bride price.

Future activities

Our aim is to increase the opportunities available for Maasai women to acquire adult education and entrepreneurship skills and to encourage more Maasai girls to join secondary schools. We want to do this by creating a project which will raise awareness of the value of girls education within the Maasai communities and to provide ways for women to learn basic literacy skills.

With increased levels of education we hope that more of our women will participate in income generating activities at the village level; there will be increased access to information for women and a more gender balanced and improved family income.

Increasing access to education for our children

Background

Generally the areas in which pastoralists live have very few services, especially schools. As a result young children often have to travel a long way to attend classes with the nearest ones being located in village centres. Many children fail to attend school simply because it is too far for them to walk every day.

Once they arrive we also find that many of the schools in areas like this are poorly resourced with very few books or science equipment. This is also deterring children from attending.

Our aim in this focus area is to create projects which will help increase the numbers of children from pastoralist communities attending school.

Future activities

Construction of classrooms

Along with support from the communities we want to increase the numbers of classrooms and dormitories built in areas closer to our home areas.

Provision of library and laboratory materials for local schools

We want to increase access to laboratories and library facilities in local schools by providing with them books and laboratory equipment.

Food program in local schools

We want to ensure food is available at the schools our children attend because many of them will have traveled long distances often without having eaten anything. They find it impossible to concentrate properly during lessons. The provision of one meal could make all the difference and encourage more of our children to attend classes.