MWBT: Community Projects That Make a Difference
It’s essential for organized Maasai women to define their criteria and priorities for action. Understanding and embracing this responsibility will foster resilience and strength within the community. However, the organization’s initiatives must be rooted in practical realities. Below are projects and efforts that hold clear value for the community. These efforts align with long-term goals and outline effective methods for achieving them.
Solar energy, renewable and plentiful, can be collected by solar panels on Maasai home roofs.
Maasai houses are dark inside. The situation has hindered and affected people in terms of their protection
and safety at night and forces them to light fires at night when light is needed.
School children do not have the light
to study at home when they are asked to do homework. Solar powered light will help solve many challenges in rural Maasai villages.
Women are the owners of the house and repair it in many ways traditionally. By installing a chimney stove in women's houses, smoke is reduced and firewood need is cut more than half, saving about 12 hours a week of menial labor. Smoke in homes is a serious cause of illness, especially for children.
We are fortunate that in the Maasai regions in north-central Tanzania there is a project that has been installing safe chimney stoves eliminating almost all smoke,
and installing solar powered electric light in Maasai family settlements.
The Project is called Maasai Stoves and Solar and is mounted by the International Collaborative for Science,
Education, and the Environment, Tanzania, ICSEE-T. ICSEE-T is dedicated to developing collaborative relationships with organizations
in the region and that includes MWBT, bringing stoves and solar systems to a new region of Maasai life.
Maasai women have traditional and even ancient knowledge and skills to make the attractive things they proudly wear. There are tourists travelling in the regions where Maasai live. There are many people already helping Maasai women get income by adapting their jewelry and ornamentation to tourists’ taste, but the women of the villages that will be the focus of MWBT activities are off the pathways where income is best possible.
The MWBT will help women get connected to the markets that are a bit distant, and create income possibilities, overcoming the difficult logistics that impeded this now.
Access to clean, safe water is essential for homes and institutions. While rainwater collection alone is not a complete solution due to its seasonal and unpredictable nature, it is still an important option wherever practical. We must act now.
In places with suitable roofs, MWBT will design and install systems to collect and store clean rainwater, along with drilling for long-term water solutions.
The organization has started a small-scale farming project to empower groups of women with agricultural inputs so that they can produce food both for business and to eliminate hunger in their family. There is an increasing understanding globally about how increasing quantity and quality of food that can be achieved as climate changes.
There is good reason to share this learning with Maasai women and therefore empower them as food producers even though the scale of their productive plots are small. he organization connects women with theses new understandings, and helps them realize good practice in their villages. MWBT provides the funds needed for trying special seeds and seedlings
This is a project to help women with limited means to have a better home. Often, people with little resources don’t imagine life improvements they have not seen. But many Maasai women who are living in cramped, uncomfortable huts have seen the three-room houses that can be built if only they had the metal sheets for the roof.
When and where MWBT finds women in their organizations understanding the better living in the three-room house, and they have the way to find all the other local materials needed for construction, we will find funds for provident the metal roofing when we can. Maasai women are the ones who do the major work of building their houses and they leap at the chance to live in better, more comfortable homes.
Toilets in schools and government clinics in isolated villages are a huge problem, especially for young women experiencing menstruation, and needing privacy, advice and respect.
MWBT will work with women teachers and parents to keep it on the agenda, will allocate some of its resources to building toilets and will collaborate with other organizations that put this important issue forward,
The board of the Maasai Women Blazing Trails organization is created as the heart of the organization to achieve its goals for the target community.
A Maasai woman from a humble village in Manyara, Tanzania, defied societal norms and poverty to achieve academic excellence. She faced significant challenges, including financial hardship and the pressure of early marriage, but she persevered through her educational journey...Read more..
Is the chairman of the village at the local government level and has the authority to receive cooperation projects from community development stakeholders. He knows very well the needs of his people and has a place in the board to intensify the impact of our work in the community.
Is a primary school teacher who has established an English medium school. The school he runs really helps many children in the villages. The organization will undoubtedly take on the challenge of strengthening schools like his.
Is experienced in community work here in Tanzania after being a Professor of Physics in the U.S. and a visiting professor at the University of Dar es Salaam. He is the International liason, advisor and will participate in program design. He has successfully implemented many projects in the Maasai community since 2008.
Is an expert in the education and community development department. He will be an outstanding program developer as officer in the organization and on this board. He has been involved in working and volunteering in community work in other organizations for community development. He has also gained experience about people's development perspectives when he traveled to the U.S. and European countries.
is a woman from Orbili village who will be a valuable voice on the board due to her experience in the culture and its challenges. She has participated in seminars on development ideas and women's rights, and she is skilled at helping people think creatively. She will inspire others with her work and her ability to encourage women to participate in community development work, making her an important source of change.