Gender Equality Kenya Project #49801

Keep Maasai Girls Learning in Kenya

by For the Good

Project Report | Feb 27, 2024
FEBRUARY 2024: UPDATE FROM THE FIELD

By Kate Lapides-Black | Director of Communications

RAINS IN KENYA
Many of you may have read about the devastating floods that have affected Kenya since November. Because the transportation infrastructure of the Loita Hills and Naikarra regions where we work consists of dirt roads that cross many rivers without bridges, the resultant flooding has made travel nearly impossible. This makes it extremely difficult for our staff to meet with community members or for our new Team Angaza interns to go out in the field to identify and enroll out-of-school children. Our Intern Coordinator, Christine Mpoe, has slept and waited by flooded rivers until nearly 2 AM in the morning until they have become safe enough to cross in order to meet with community leaders and help us continue to make forward progress on new schools. Our Programs Manager, Josephat Mashati, and Schools Coordinator, Rebecca Ledidi, have managed to do the same. Their intrepid commitment and dedication through many challenges has allowed us to make much of the progress outlined below.

GROWING OUR TEAM ANGAZA
We began expanding our group of Team Angaza interns last October. Three of our new interns were brought on to meet gaps we have identified in the Loita Hills –– small pocket regions where we are seeing lower primary enrollment than expected. The other four interns have just undergone their first training and are now beginning to identify and enroll children into over 30 different public primary and ECD schools across Olderkesi and Nakairra, two adjoining regions we began expanding to towards the end of 2023. In the more remote areas there, families live in isolated homesteads and often, have had little exposure to formal education or to an understanding of the ways it can benefit their children and communities. Traditional practices of FGC and early marriage also remain high. We expect our work here to be a journey in which we will be learning and building upon local families and communities’ strengths to empower them to move from the known –– what they already know and do well –– to the unknown of new ideas and information about education and health. We will both be learning and look forward to the opportunity to be able to make a significant impact in this historically underserved region.

MORE NEW HIGH SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS!
Just before the severe rains hit southern Kenya, we were able to celebrate the opening of several new classrooms at a third new day secondary school. The communities of Enairebuk and Olorte began fundraising for the first classrooms of their new school in August, 2023. By the following month, they had collectively sold enough goats and sheep to reach their fundraising goal, which we then matched 100%. The community used the collective funds to build the first two classrooms of the new Enairebuk Day Secondary School in September and held a public ceremony to celebrate their completion at the end of October. Nearly 1000 people attended, dressed in their finest Maasai jewelry and shukas. The first cohort of students began studying in these classrooms when the new school term began several weeks ago, and nearly 40 are now enrolled.

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.

OUR GRATITUDE:
Our ability to match the hard work of these communities is truly only possible thanks to the generosity of you, the people who support our work. Thank you for being part of the global community that makes these schools possible through your generosity and caring. We always wish we could transport each and every one of you to Kenya so you could experience for yourself the difference your caring has made in countless lives. Since that isn’t possible, we are sharing a small album of photos from our recent trip through the link below. Asante sana, as always, from the bottom of our hearts for helping us change the trajectory of so many young lives across the globe.

*Names used in this update are of our staff or beneficiaries with consent from all

Links:

Photographs from our recent trip to Kenya in autumn, 2023.

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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.

Links:

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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."

Links:

For the Good's website

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