Our Programs
Female Literacy and Empowerment
Maasai women have some of the lowest literacy rates in the world. MCI believes that best way to improve the lives of the Maasai people is to teach their girls to read. By focusing on female education, MCI seeks to improve the social, economic and political strength of the entire Maasai community.
School Feeding Programs
Many primary schools in Maasailand have low enrollment and attendance rates due to hunger. Massai children often either avoid school altogether or have difficulty concentrating on their lessons due to hunger. Our program provides one solid meal at midday for the children. At each of the four schools where we have implemented a feeding program, student enrollment has more than doubled. Currently, we are feeding over 750 children daily.
Computer Technology Training
Computer technology can narrow the distance between continents and accelerate the process of technological and economic development. MCI believes that every Maasai child should learn basic computer skills, including how to access the internet and send and receive email. MCI has developed a program to provide solar-powered computer labs that connect rural Maasai schools to the internet. Our pilot project at Njanga Olo Losgero School was formally dedicated in January 2010, and construction of a computer lab is currently underway at the Fred Baron School, with completion scheduled for mid March 2010.
Women’s Health & Resource Center
MCI is constructing the first women’s health center in Maasailand, in the Indoyion Oloip area of the Maasai Mara game reserve. Our goal is to provide reproductive health and family planning services to Maasai women, and basic health care to their children. The center will provide information relevant to the community’s educational, social, political and cultural needs as well enhancing local talents in areas such as computer literacy, beadwork, poetry, music, environmental conservation and leadership development.
Tuition Assistance
In 2003, the Kenyan government adopted a national program of universal primary education. While laudatory in its objectives and impressive in its results, government-sponsored primary education has not solved the historic underrepresentation of Maasai children in primary schools. MCI's Tuition Assistance program pays school tuition and room and board fees for a number of Maasai children at several area schools.
Sanitary Towel Program
This program supports girls’ education by provide girls with sanitary towels and underwear, enabling them to stay in school during menses. A female teacher in the classroom explains the use of the pads to the girls.
The Maasai Women’s Bead Pioneer
The Maasai Women’s Bead Pioneer project will help Maasai women produce and sell their cultural products directly to the local and international tourist markets, without intermediaries, in order to feed, educate and clothe their children, and above all to preserve their culture.
The project is establishing a workshop at the MCI center in Mara where women will do their beadwork. The workshop also serves as a common ground where women discuss issues including education, their children’s future, and how they can utilize their art talents, bring economic empowerment, and help build the capacity of the community to benefit from their own resources.
Community Conservation Awareness Education
MCI believes a balance between economic development and environmental and cultural preservation is achievable. For thousands of years, Maasailand has been a place of cultivated harmony between humans and wildlife. Dependent on productive grazing lands for their herds of cattle, Maasai have always been custodians of the natural habitat. Maasai people see the land itself as a sacred, living entity, a source of medicine and a place of worship to be protected for future generations. The wildlife of Maasailand has benefited from centuries of Maasai land tenure.
Community Conservation Awareness Education encourages teamwork and networking between school children and the local community in various aspects of environmental stewardship, including tree planting and soil conservation measures, and educates the community on how to preserve the environment. It also encourages group work within the local community and strengthens the commitment to conservation. The program involves the local communities in identifying priorities, analyzing problems and devising both short-term and long-term solutions for conservation.
Intercultural Exchange Program
This program aims to bring to Maasailand both local and international friends of the Maasai people, through tourism, to benefit the Maasai community as an alternative income-generating activity. Our friends and clients get a chance to learn from the community and gain unique and unforgettable experiences while helping the Maasai to preserve their culture and environment.