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MASAAI MARA
North of the Mara River in the great Rift Valley of western Kenya lies the Masaai Mara wilderness reserve. Like the Serengeti to its south in Tanzania, the Masaai Mara is home to some of Africa’s greatest herds of wildebeest, zebra and antelope, and the families of big cats that prey on them - not to mention the herds of elephant and buffalo, groups of giraffe and troops of baboons that are everywhere across its plains and in its riverine forests. This is “Out of Africa” country with solitary acacia trees in vast acres of grassland, and lodges that offer a true safari experience under a huge African sky.
Nestling under the Esoit Oloololo Escarpment on the western border of the reserve is one of the oldest and best of these lodges, & Beyond’s Kichwa Tembo camp, which is a leading employer of local people from the communities high on the escarpment behind the lodge. These are a series of Masaai villages that struggle to make a living and to educate their children in this wild and remote terrain.
The Masaai people are nomadic herders and their cattle roam freely around these hills, cared for by children and “morani” (young warriors). There are no fences separating them from the conservation area and wild animals including elephant, buffalo and sometimes lions can - and do - roam freely through the more populated areas from time to time.
Africa Foundation is helping several of these communities - particularly Emurototo and Enkurruk.
Appeals
Emurototo
Boarding school is the answer for these deprived children
Meet Christopher Kuniyia, Chairman of the Emurototo Primary School governing body; and Peter Nembe, the school’s headmaster. After a restrained and courteous greeting, they will subject you to an impassioned briefing on their underperforming and under-resourced school and the need for a clinic to ensure basic health standards.
They will tell you there is much to be done:
- To rescue the community primary school by providing a proper boarding facility and additional class rooms and staff accommodation
- To help provide water to the school and the community through the provision of a borehole and construction of a dam for retaining water for the cattle;
- To re-furbish and commission an abandoned missionary clinic (badly needed to counter the serious threat of malaria and to treat sufferers);
- And to complete a house for a doctor and nurse that was built to roof height and then also abandoned
You will be encouraged to learn that this is not a community that is sitting on its hands, but one that puts its money where its mouth is - even if the money is woefully inadequate. They have built some of the classrooms themselves and others with the help of the & Beyond Foundation. They have saved up and paid for an engineer’s report on the availability of borehole water in the area. And they have saved also towards the provision of boarding facilities for the school.
You cannot but be impressed by the calibre and commitment of these leaders, who are determined to overcome the problems they face and deliver improved results. And problems they do face!
They will tell you that there is a Masaai saying; “life can take us the whole day”. They explain that many of their children walk to school each day from miles away. Often they are late for school because they have had to avoid wild animals or ford torrential streams that rise during the two annual rainy seasons in this equatorial region. Having had only a cup of milk before leaving for school in the morning, most children live too far away to go home for lunch and the school has no facility to provide them with a mid-day meal, so they go hungry until dinner. This measurably affects their energy levels and ability to concentrate and learn.
They will tell you “We have to build dormitories, a kitchen and dining room, ablution blocks and laundries. We have to have water for drinking, cooking and ablutions. And we have to provide three meals a day for the children. A weekly boarding school is what we need.”
Adding: “And we really need to fix the clinic, so the government will send us a doctor and a nurse”
Help Africa Foundation enable Christopher Kuniyia, Peter Nembe and their fellow leaders on the Emurototo community council and school governing board to meet this challenge. Help us provide the £250,000 it will take to do this.