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Collaborating for Success
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Putting together this enews, I am struck by the power and possibilities of collaboration--a recurrent theme running through all our work.
 | | Robert V. Lange |
I'll be in Cambridge for another few weeks before heading back to headquarters in Tanzania. Project Manager Kisioki Moijtiko keeps us all abreast of the Project's tremendous expansion, and in this enews we present updates about the corn flour mill, the Maasai Pastoralist Women's Org, and introduce a leader from our newly-added Kenyan work.
Thank you so much for your interest and support. As always, when you share our work by forwarding this email, a link to our website, or when you ask friends to LIKE maasaistovesandsolarproject on Facebook, you make a real difference.
With heartfelt appreciation,
Twende!
Robert V. Lange
October, 2014
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Flour mill Project helps "poorest of the poor"
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Last year, the Maasai Stoves & Solar Project built a corn flour mill in Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania, supported by a generous grant from CODEGAZ, a French NGO made up of volunteers from the GDF Suez.
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The only corn flour mill in Monduli District run by women
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The mill is open daily, with double staff on Thursday, which is the busy market day in the region. Customers bring bags of corn, clean the kernels, and our staff members grind it into flour, while they wait.
The collaboration aimed to provide a source of income to help the "poorest of the poor". These Maasai widows now earn desperately needed funds. And the program is working! So far, seven of the women now have our stoves in their home. They take home paychecks, transforming their everyday lives. Based on this success, we hope to expand into the second mill in Emereti village in Monduli Juu and eventually add one in Longido district.
Thank you to CODEGAZ, and to all of you who help to support this work.
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Monduli Pastoralist Women's Organization - on the rise
The women of the Maasai Stoves & Solar Project are very committed. They love the work and the feelings of new power and freedom.
 Goat project of the MPWO | |
Last spring, they formed a new group for women to determine and achieve their own goals. Now including more than 100 dues-paying members, they meet to address their most urgent concerns, in addition to the health and home improvement goals of the Project. They've elected three women to executive positions, and Kisioki and I will continue to collaborate as advisors, for as long as they wish.
In the spirit of collaboration, a sister organization is forming in the Boston area. Women studying international development, health policy and nongovernmental organizational management are meeting and organizing a group to support the MPWO.
 | | MPWO meeting |
The MPWO will soon enjoy the fruits of their first collaboration. They are bringing their herd of forty goats to market, with plans for a cow business and cement block enterprise underway.
The group's most cherished dream is to establish a vocational school for girls who cannot go on in government schools. This will give the girls a chance to put off marriage and develop their learning capacities. But first they intend to get their income generation projects off the ground.
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Climate change and livestock-based economy
In much of rural Africa the agriculture and livestock-based economies depend on the quantity and predictability of rainfall. Although the Maasai are diversifying with increased agriculture, they still live in a free-ranging livestock-based economy. Their dependence on ample grazing and water resource requires reliable rain.
 Free-ranging cattle | | |
What will happen to rural societies in the face of climate change when rainfall becomes less predictable? Will survival depend on replacing free grazing and rain-based farming with water storage, irrigation, and fodder distribution systems?
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Meet Jenifa Simon Sikorei
This fall, with your support, we initiated the Project in Kenya, with teams going in both directions for village meetings and training.
We are pleased to introduce you to Jenifa Simon Sikorei, a Maasai woman of Kenya. With her many accomplishments, it is easy to see why she was chosen by her village to help lead the women of the Maasai Stoves & Solar Installation Team as the Oltiasika Project Secretary. Ms. Sikorei also serves as Chair of the Ministry of God Hope Churches for women in Kenya's Kajiado District. Trained in health in Loitokkitok, Kenya, she is a Community Health Worker in Orbili Village.
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Jenifa Simon Sikorei
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She is thirty-six, the mother of five children, and the only wife of Simon Sikorei. She told us that as a health worker,
she appreciates the benefits of a smoke-free house and a stove that is safe for her children. She is cooking very peacefully there, and notices that the new stove requires only half the wood of her previous three-stone cooking fire. And she wants you to know, "the food tastes better too--it's a lot less smoky." Welcome Jenifa!
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For a better life for the rural world, and a cleaner environment for all
Worldwide Headquarters
International Collaborative, Maasai Stoves & Solar Project
81 Kirkland Street, Unit 2, Cambridge, MA 02138
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