In Kenya, women’s rights have undergone a significant transformation over the past 20 years, particularly in Maasai communities where traditional roles once confined women to domestic duties and subservience to men. Historically, Maasai women have had no voice and little power in community affairs, with a social status equivalent to that of children. With the help of women’s rights activists, harmful cultural norms that deny women agency and opportunity have been effectively challenged. Women now have greater access to education, employment, and leadership opportunities.
Activists like Hellen Nkuriaya and her team at the Tepesua community-based organization (CBO) have played a pivotal role in this shift. A fierce advocate for women’s rights, Hellen has been rescuing girls from the devastating practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage since 2002. FGM is a life-threatening procedure that has been banned in Kenya since 2011, but is still widely practiced in rural, tribal communities. As a survivor of child marriage and FGM, Hellen understands that enrolling girls in school is the best way to protect them. Married off multiple times in exchange for cows—starting at the age of nine—she fought to escape these marriages to attend school. Eventually she earned a university scholarship and became a public school teacher and taught for several years.
Fighting FGM and Child Marriage
After encountering challenge after challenge rescuing girls as a government teacher, Hellen ultimately decided to resign and founded the Maji Moto Enkiteng Lepa School for rescued girls in 2009. Enkiteng Lepa (translated as “Our Cow” in Maasai), is a school that primarily serves rescued Maasai girls and some (paying) boys. The school houses around 190 students and 17 teachers, and provides a safe space for the girls to live and study. After girls graduate from the school, Hellen and her team assist them in applying for scholarships to attend secondary school through a partner organization, EFAC.
Recognizing the need to rescue even younger girls, Hellen founded the Tepesua primary school in 2015 to educate vulnerable girls and boys in grades K-3. Most children who attend Tepesua primary school have mothers who are widows from child marriages and are unable to afford school fees.
Nearby the primary school, Hellen also established a widows’ village that creates vocational opportunities for survivors of child marriage, so women who were widowed at a young age can earn a livable income through various kinds of work. This income enables the women to feed themselves and their children as well as invest in their children’s futures.
The Tepesua CBO team also delicately balances maintaining and celebrating the Maasai culture while simultaneously advocating to counteract cultural practices that are harmful to women and girls. Speaking out against gender violence and discrimination is extremely difficult in traditional Maasai communities, but Hellen and her team continue to make incredible strides in the fight for gender equity.
The Current State of Maasai Women’s Empowerment
With recent political strife due to government corruption, social service programs have been in a state of flux and instability. Unemployment rates are high, taxes continue to rise, and political bribery has meant social service workers such as doctors, nurses, and teachers often don’t receive their salaries—sometimes for weeks or even months. Many families can currently only afford to eat one meal a day.
As leaders and activists, Hellen and her team have been instrumental in helping their community stay on track during these difficult times. Her efforts have not gone unnoticed, earning her recognition and awards for her feminist activism. Most recently, she was given an honorary PhD for her community work, and the Maji Moto Enkiteng Lepa school is consistently recognized as a top school in the country.
The next challenge for women is to truly occupy spaces traditionally dominated by men, with their work and decision-making power. As more women enter the workforce, they become role models for younger girls, demonstrating that they too can aspire to higher education and professional careers. One team member mentioned Hillary Clinton as a figure who inspired her as a young girl, and how she hoped she could do the same within her own community, by mentoring and guiding students to have a focused and determined mindset.
Through the Tepesua CBO’s economic empowerment programs, women receive greater respect in their community through opportunities that enable them to earn money independently and reduce their vulnerability to exploitation by men. By mastering skills such as beadwork and handicraft design, women have found financial independence, diminishing their reliance on men and giving them greater confidence in their own abilities.
Catalyzing Change with Strategic Partnership
WECO’s recent site visit with the Tepesua team opened our eyes to these incredible ongoing efforts to empower women and girls. During our visit, we saw the progress the team has made at the Maji Moto Enkiteng Lepa school, and were given a very warm greeting by the students and faculty. The school complex they have built is impressive, and with the recent construction of new water tanks—each with a capacity of 10,000 liters—the school now has access to plenty of water. During our tour of the facilities, we spoke with the team about the school’s current needs.
Their highest priority was unequivocally the construction of a science lab to satisfy new requirements from the Kenyan government. This lab is critical in order to keep girls on track, so they can progress from junior secondary to secondary school. Failure to have it would mean they can’t move forward in their education and would place them at a high risk of returning home to be married or forced to undergo FGM. The science lab initiative will be WECO’s first partner project with the Tepesua CBO, and we’ve already begun planning for construction.
WECO will also support Hellen and her team on a sustainable community farm initiative as another avenue for empowering women living in the widows’ village. Through innovative farming techniques, the project will increase food security for women and their children, and educate students and community members about the benefits of sustainable farming. It will also provide women women with greater financial stability as they will generate income from selling surplus produce. The project will include supplying the village with livestock such as goats, to produce milk for nutrition and offspring to sell at the market for additional income.
Another need the project team overviewed for us was adding an additional classroom for the Tepesua primary school for grades 4-6, so they can accept more vulnerable children and rescue more girls at risk of child marriage and FGM. Moving forward, Hellen and her team plan to expand the primary school curriculum to include early vocational teachings.
Actualizing Sustainable Gender Equity
While much progress has been made for Maasai women’s rights in Kenya, the road ahead remains challenging. During our visit, the Tepesua CBO team told us that because women now have a voice, they feel more empowered and inspired to work and help their daughters have a brighter future. However, having the freedom to work and allowing women entry into positions of leadership is only the beginning. There is still continued cultural pressure for women to be primarily caretakers and wives, and recent pushback from corrupt leaders and politicians means supporting these initiatives is now more important than ever.
Being allowed to speak is one step. Elevating the voices of women and girls with initiatives that embrace their entire personhood is what must come next for sustainable progress. By prioritizing a holistic approach to empowerment, we can create critical momentum toward actualizing a more equitable society for women and girls—in Kenya and beyond.