Activities

MGEF Activities focus on community participation and community education, which is an important part of our strategy to educate a generation of Maasai girls.  While many Maasai men and women are passionate advocates for girls' education, many also adhere to traditional beliefs that deny girls that right.  MGEF is working with the community to reach beyond the converted to increase support for girls' education among the Maasai.

Community Participation:  Partnering with the Community

MGEF works in partnership with a community-based organization in Kajiado, Kenya, to ensure that the work we do is appropriate to the culture.  MGEF in Kajiado is an independent organization with an independent board of directors and 56 volunteers throughout the Kajiado, Loitokitok, and Ngong Districts who manage the scholarship selection and all matters related to students.  The Kajiado staff organizes all of MGEF's activities in Kenya.

Every September, MGEF holds an Annual General Meeting in Kajiado, which is attended by the Kajiado staff, board, and volunteers, parents of MGEF scholarship students, educators, local area ciefs, local government officials, and other charitable organizations in the area.  This interactive meeting gives MGEF an opportunity to inform the community about our work and to benefit from their perspective.

MGEF has also organized goverance workshops and provided staff training for the Kajiado organization to strengthen their management skills and ensure good governance in our partner organization.

Student Participation: Providing Role Models

MGEF brings all of our scholarship students together each spring from the far corners of an area the size of the state of New Jersey to meet each other and hear successful Maasai women speak.  Some of the speakers are MGEF scholarship students, either currently enrolled in colleges and universities or graduates of higher education who are working, supporting themselves, and helping their families.  There are only a handful of Maasai principals, teachers, nurses, lawyers, or other professional women where Maasai girls live an go to school, and girls, who are typically undervalued, desperately need role models to give them hope.  The student receptions offer this hope. 

Community Education:  Life Skills Workshops and Workshops for Women

MGEF's community education projects address the social customs and cultural beliefs that prevent girls from getting an education, and on providing opportunities to rural Maasai women who have not had the benefit of education.  Our workshops for boys, girls, and men directly address early marriage, teen pregnancy, FGM, violence against women, and HIV, all significant factors contributing to girls' dropping out of school.  Nutrition and agriculture workshops give women the knowlege and drip irrigation system to provide food for their families and an economic activity.  Business training also gives women an opportunity to raise their economic status.