MAASAI YOUTH GROUP, KENYA

Esipil Oorbarnot self help group as registered under the Ministry of Social services, is a group of youths and elderly women,seeking to improve the welfare of young women,young adults and young men in the Maa community which encompasses the Masai of Kenya,Samburu people,and Njemps. The group has been in existence since 2007 operating informally as Maa youth economic and livelihood empowerment program,until recently when it was officially registered in Kenya as a self help group.

This has been necessitated by the need to grow membership,improve service provision,and widen scope of coverage,besides the need to seek collaboration both locally and internationally. Currently,Esipil oorbarnot supports over 100 households in three Counties(Narok,Kajiado,Samburu,and Baringo),through county coordinators who are volunteers in each of the counties.

It focuses on the reduction of youths indulging in vices such as prostitution,Drug use and abuse,and other idleness instigated activities,and helping them use their life skills to earn a living.We believe with the right resources,we can rescue all youths and women who are suffering in unnecessary poverty.

The group has applied for funding from different organizations to enable the members access greenhouse farming, bead work groups, training on drug use and abuse,HIV/AIDS awareness, training on alternative farming techniques and drought mitigation strategies.

Esipil oorbarnot self help group is widening its membership through a voluntary membership structure.It is governed by a group of youths who foresee its activities,coordinate its main objectives,and improve on strategies to ensure community assistance is attained at all levels,including just passing information to them regarding social,political and economic issues.

Esipil Oorbarnot consists of youth from all denominations, women of middle age and the elderly who are a wealth of information and guidance to the group. A list of membership can be provided on request. We are currently seeking partnerships from youth,women,and other groups for cultural exchange,exchange programs,educational assistance,healthcare issues,or simply those who want to Visit the Maasai,Samburu and Njemps and experience culture and traditional hospitality first hand. We seek to expose the members and open their minds to the world.Kindly contact us in case you have any such interest amongst the Maa communities,we are the champions.

“Maa” Origin and History

“Maa” is short form for the word “olmaa” which basically means the Maa speaking communities.The Maa speaking people include the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania(who live along the Rift Valley of Kenya stretching all the way into Tanzania),The Samburu of Kenya(Live along the upper Rift Valley)and the Njemps(Baringo),Ogiek(Rift Valley).

The Maa speaking communities are known to be pastoralists who rely on cows,sheep and goats for meat,milk,and blood which they also drink as food.
Since they came from “Entorrorr” which is the skin they believe God stretched out to them and they used it to drop into the Northern part of Ethiopia down along the rift valley all the way to Tanzania,the maa speaking communities believed that man can only make a living out of livestock.They kept huge herds of cows,which served for providing food,a sign of prestige,and a daily activity.

The Maa would move from place to place with their animals in search of greener pastures,and water.The maa speakers co existed amongst themselves comfortably until recently when human population,demarcation of land necessitated by high demand for space,reduction in access to water points resulting from increase in demand for water,and general shift of goal posts with regard to pastoralism as the chief source of livelihood.

Children who were initially used as a source of labor,women who would spend most of their time herding,and men who would move with animals all year round in search of pasture now had to seek alternatives as children needed to go to school, mothers find themselves vested with the responsibility of providing basic needs,school needs to children; hence they are mostly unable to attend to animals consistently. This has led to conflicts and even family break ups as men attach little value to children education as opposed to using them as a source of labor.

Cultural attachment to animals and the need to restore cultural values among the maa speakers has been paramount and has seen the maa cling to animal husbandry,despite the challenges facing it. Currently,the Maa speaking community needs interventions on how to adapt to political,social,environmental,and demographic effects on their lifestyle.

Esipil oorbarnot self help group has thought out relevant ideas that can be put into play. One such activity is the need to introduce greenhouse farming to these pastoralists as it will help them utilize small parcels of land to attain great benefits. Bead work groups supported through supply of beads and other accessories and proper marketing of their products to fetch the best possible prices,would empower many households to afford a decent meal,avoid girls from indulging in prostitution in exchange for basic needs such as inner clothing,sanitary towels,and even body lotion. Such desperate activities have been reported initially.

If you share in this vision, talk to us.

Ancient History

The Northern and Southern Maa speakers of East Africa have been the pre-eminent cattle keepers in terms of wealth, land control, and influence in both Kenya and Tanzania for a very long time.

At the height of their ascendancy in the mid 18th century the range lands that they “owned” included the Great Rift Valley and fertile volcanic lands on either side over an area of more than 350,000 km sq. ( 60% of the land mass of modern Kenya).

Prior to ‘Emutai’, the decade of disaster between 1893 and 1903 that probably killed 60% of the pre-disaster population of Maasai (because in the first few years it killed over 95% of the cattle that they depended upon for their daily milk), the population of Maasai that controlled this vast area was likely less than 100,000. It is incredible that even with well organized standing armies of bachelor warriors the Maasai could have owned and controlled such a huge area of diverse terrain with only one fifth of a person per square kilometer.

In the north they were close neighbors of pastoral Dasenech, Turkana, Gabbra, Rendille, Boran, and Pokot who were all confined to less productive range lands on the periphery of the northern Maasai (Samburu and Chamus). The southern Maasai occupied a long broad tongue of semi arid land bounded by sixteen agricultural peoples: the Meru, Embu, Kikuyu, Kama, Taita, Usambaa, Parakuyo, Larush, Iraqw, Tatoga, Kuria, Gusii, Luo, Kipsigis, Nandi, Marakuet and Elgeyo.

The Maasai are the southernmost Nilotic speakers of Africa and their homeland includes the range lands of the Boma Plateau bounded in the south by the waters of the Sabaot River which flows from the Ethiopian Highlands into the White Nile and the Sudd just south of Malakal.

Modern genetics and traditional linguistics show information and genetic exchanges with their Afroasiatic (Cushitic) neighbours to the north and east over the past 3000 years. And yet authoritative treatments of Maasai history do not penetrate beyond the last 20 to 23 remembered fourteen-year age sets. The oldest remembered north Maasai age set of warriors was probably initiated about 1690, but these Lkasurutia men (“ of the brass coils”) inherited the way they thought, acted, spoke, and prayed from people who walked the mountains of Sinai and the shores of the River Nkishon which flows into Galilee. The Maasai are named as being amongst the Hebrew priests in Chronicles and the Samburu are called the Korr, or Kore, and are listed in following verses of the same Bible Chapter as singers and gatekeepers. At times of great challenge modern Maasai pray ‘Nkai ai Oi Pasinai’ = my god given at Sinai.

Cattle keepers in Africa had fully specialized pastoral cultures along the Upper Nile in Egypt and Sudan for more than 6000 years at a time when the savannahs in what is now the Sahara had just begun their trend towards extreme desiccation. The greatest survival tool and adaptation of all cattle keeping people is the high mobility of the human population and the cattle on which they depend. While they might lay claim to and defend range lands with great ferocity against non allied pastoralists, successful pastoral people must also be masters at keeping the peace that their livestock needs to grow and prosper.

The desertification of the vast Saharan ranges along the length of the Nile has pushed the ancient cattle keepers south into both Ethiopia and the southern Sudan as well as into northern Uganda and Kenya. We know from scenes on the dynastic carvings of ancient Egyptian monuments that cattle keepers of southern Sudan were amongst those people whose involuntary labour was used to move and work these monumental stones.

The Maasai do not recall just when they left their Nilotic homeland in the Sudan. This suggests that their exodus was not a single event but a very long process of north to south movement that took place over more than 2000 years. They do remember when they left the hot floor of the Kenyan Rift Valley and followed the Kerio River southwest until it guided them onto the well watered range lands just east of Mt. Elgon. Once they arrived into the Kenyan Highlands where they pushed aside other pastoralists, they also cultivated long lasting exchange relationships with neighouring agricultural people. This rescued them to a great extent from the periodic famines that are such a very great challenge to cattle keepers without reliable agricultural neighbours.

Although three Modern Maasai sub groups, the Chamus, Larush and the Parakuo became sedentary agriculturalists around Baringo, on Module Mountain and on the southern edge of greater Maasailand, the Maasai themselves shunned the life of digging, but still were very much protected and nutritionally sustained by the crops from agricultural peoples around them.

In exchange, all of these agricultural neighbours were insulated and protected by the Maasai from repeated attacks by Swahili and Arab slavers in the thousand kilometer coastal Sahel that extended in a long chain of at least a dozen independent trading city states from Lamu in the north through to Zanzibar. Thus during the height of the Swahili and Omani city states, a vast area of Kenya and Northern Tanzania, the populations adjacent to Maasailand in central Kenya through to northern Tanzania were protected from the scourge of slavery by the Maasai who had fled from the ravages of slavery in the Sudan and forged their very culture in that prolonged escape.

Depending on the narrative you favour, the Maasai presence on the savannahs of East Africa, has either protected the open wildlife filled range lands that is and has been their domain as pastoral guardians of the natural estate, or as pastoral nomads from hell they have destroyed or are in the process of destroying the last great mammalian assemblages of the East African Pleistocene.

Like all modern people in East Africa the Maasai population more than doubles every 20 years. They lost a lot of their range lands and since that time their once open rangelands have been reduced by many national parks and modern conservation areas. With a near constant cattle population per-capita, Maasai cattle wealth is reduced by the increase in people. While it is true that many of their range lands, particularly in the north, bear little resemblance in wildlife abundance and richness compared to just the last few decades, it is also true that in many areas Maasai owned wildlife sanctuaries are increasingly some of the best managed and productive conservation estates in Africa.

Make no mistake, modern young Maa speaking men and women are as much a part of this new information age as anyone else, and they will surprise themselves and the rest of us by tapping their very deep, life-tolerant, cultural roots and coming up with “new” solutions to what may appear to be impossible conservation problems.

Maa people like to say that all of life is both bad and good but if you can listen to the “Mouth of Maa“ – you cannot die.

Let’s not imagine that the Maasai are now at a cultural and conservation dead-end.

Let us join hands in conserving this rich culture and people.You could learn so much from them,as you help them conserve their heritage.This is the responsibility vested on all of us.

Talk to us and lets start moving together on this.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

FINANCIALLY: You can assist the group financially by writing an E-mail to us,and we shall provide all necessary details on transfer.Any amount sent will be accounted for,and report on expenditure sent to you.Our primary e mail is : [email protected].

FUNDRAISING: You could be our link to finance through fundraising for our activities through churches,not for profit organizations,individuals,and other fora.You will be doing this using proposals we send to you,or concept notes.We shall use these funds to improve our services,recruit more women and youth,and expand our activities.

READING MATERIALS: The group concerns itself with training of youth and women,empowerment of young women and men,and general welfare of the desperate in society.We shall receive reading materials sent for the use of training these people on life skills,proper parenting,sexual purity,drug use and abuse effects,and any other positively impacting material.These can be sent through our mailing address(request through e mail) or via e-mail.

EXCHANGE PROGRAMS: We have pleasant women and youth who can host groups,families and individuals willing to visit our country to see its beauty and appreciate culture first hand.We can arrange for such an interaction as part of a broader trip to Kenya,or specifically as a cultural tour.Write to us if interested for guidelines and arrangements.
RELIGIOUS GROUPS: We connect our local churches to other religious churches across the planet in what we call C to C.Our Church to Church union seeks to make men fellowship,women fellowship,and children ministry powerful and exchange/empower each other to attain Christs love in unity.This could be through exchange visits between the churches,a church sponsoring a family,or buying beaded ornaments or clothing from the group as a sign of extending Gods love to these people.This can be arranged on request as well.

We are a listening community based,and empowerment focused group.

You can write to us on [email protected]

Call us on +254719804759(Kelvin),and we shall be glad to work with you.Kindly note that we only do responses for serious e-mails,and give them priority,hence any other issues may be addressed later.