The Maasai are a semi-nomadic people who live under a communal land management system. They rely on livestock such as cattle, goats and sheep as their main source of food and income. Men usually assume the duties of hunting, while women are responsible for building their houses, supplying water, collecting firewood, milking cattle and cooking for the family. However, there are many problems facing the Maasai people as a result of lack of resources and government interference.
The MAGSA-OUTREACH website lists six broad problems facing the community: illiteracy and low education, lack of employment, high and rising levels of poverty, lack of provision of clean water, environmental pollution and desertification, and HIV/AIDS and tropical diseases. The Kenyan government has contributed significantly to the plight of the Maasai by converting areas of land into reservations and game parks. This denies the Maasai access to essential supplies of water and land. However, the Maasai people see none of the revenue gained from increases in tourism as a result of these projects, money that could be used to provide children with school supplies or educate women about the spread of HIV/AIDS.
These are only a few of the plights facing the Maasai. Our group’s primary focus is to raise awareness of these issues, in particular, the issues of education and the environment. We plan to do this through various service events during which we raise money and awareness.
We have many ideas for fundraising and are planning to do 2-3 events as well as things on the side such as selling t-shirts and beads. For our first event we are planning on doing a five-mile walk-a-thon. As you already know, the Massai women walk many miles just to get enough water for the day as well as Massai children have to walk enormous lengths to get to school. We would portray this daily routine in the walk-a-thon and make it symbolic by having our destination be at the river in Glover Park. We were thinking of preparing food or some thing that would be held at the goal marker in order to congratulate the people for signing up and paying for the walk-a thon as well as completing the walk. Before this event, we will be selling t-shirts to further promote people to sign up and we will wear these shirts at the walk-a-thon. The second event we are planning on doing is holding a talent show or an open mike in the tavern. There won’t be a cover charge however donations would be appreciated at the event. We would get an entertaining DJ and 10-15 performers for the night. For the third event we will hold a dodge ball tournament. We have not planned the details of this event however it would be held on campus and it would be 5 or 10 dollars to join. We would make a group over facebook most likely.
We think it would be effective to seek co-sponsorship for these events with groups on campus. Here is a list of some groups we thought would be willing to help:
- African Students' Organization
- Alliance Of Students Against Poverty
- Eco-Sense
- Movement For Global Justice
- Nourish International
- Student Advocates For Native Communities
- Get in contact with Joseph Ole Tipanko, Group Projects Coordinator for MAGSA-OUTREACH, initiate a dialogue about our project, discuss the possibility of getting some beads made by the Maasai women so we could sell them as a fundraiser.
- Send emails to all the organizations listed above and see if they would be willing to co-sponsor any of our events.
- Find a company that can provide us with t-shirts for our project.
- Begin work on a design for the t-shirt
- Have a blog post up one week from today discussing our progress
