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Contact Information

You can contact us through:

Ms Caroline Nangeya

Director

PO BOX 244-20700

Kilgoris,Kenya
Email: naseriangirlsrescueinitiative@gmail.com

Tel: +254-710-884630

Women Empowerment and Girl Child Education

Naserian Wlefare Women Group is working with the community around the Lolgorian division to realize the possibility of improving the living standards for the people and poverty eradication in the Maasai community. The community is currently facing many problems such as scarce medical facilities, few schools, and loss of traditional grazing land to conservation of wildlife, severe droughts, environmental pollution and lack of access to clean water. These problems have impoverished the Maasai community and despite of their land having been annexed by the government to create the Maasai Mara game reserve, little or no benefit is yet to be realized by the local people.
The situation is further worsened by negative cultural practices of the community such as FGM and early marriages of girls without giving them a chance to go through school. The future wellbeing of the Maasai community is thus threatened as many of its children do not receive education and this means that the Maasai community will find it hard to compete for the resources of Kenya , which will only be maximized and exploited by other tribes that have accepted education for both their boys and girls.

Women Empowerment and Girl Child Edjucation

The main purpose of this project is to encourage education of the maasai girl child and make community members especially women gain confidence that they are the prime movers of their own destiny and they are the major forces in dealing with the issues that confront them. Currently, 90% of Maasai girls are circumcised and married off before they reach the age of 13 years. Circumcision of both boys and girls is considered a rite of passage. It is however more serious for girls as they are considered ready for marriage once circumcised. At the end of it all, young Maasai girls are often sentenced to wifehood at an early age at the expense of education. NWWGI is currently planning to build a facility to act as a Rescue Centre for girls who prefer to acquire education as opposed to FGM and early marriage and those that are rejected by their families for refusing to be circumcised. The community has offered some land for the construction of such facilities that will also accommodate and be used to orphaned and vulnerable Maasai children. NWWG is fully committed towards the promotion of education for Maasai children more especially girls who are more affected by negative cultural practices such as FGM. FGM is the greatest challenge towards enhancing girl child education and we aim to sensitize the community against this practice in the following ways:

• Workshops on various topics e.g. the importance of educating the girl child, the dangers of FGM, the importance of women in resource ownership and management and HIV/AIDS workshops.

• Conduct sensitization and awareness creation workshops/ seminars for targeted community groups, community leaders, youth groups etc on FGM effects and consequences.

• Train selected community animators to inform them on the advantages of FGM.

• To train community animators and CORPS (Community Own Resource Persons) on community mobilization techniques.

• To sensitize primary school girls on the effects of FGM.

• Script, songs and plays for community education to sensitize churches, schools and villagers on the negative impacts of FGM.

• Record songs and audio tapes on anti-FGM for community education.

• Undertake research, baseline surveys including documentation of all information about FGM.

• Provide progress reports to partners/ donors outlining achievements, challenges and opportunities.

• To mobilize and inform the community on essential information on women’s health, reproductive health, human rights and the legal statutes of FGM.

• To lead the community target groups to suggest culturally acceptable initiatives of tackling FGM including alternative rites of passage.

• Establish community structures for support of education of the Maasai girl child.

The project is aware of the fact that because of FGM, most young Maasai girls never have an opportunity to gain formal education. NWWG is actively involved in seeking solutions that promotes Maasai girl child education. Our strategy in this respect is to approach willing individuals and organizations to sponsor Maasai girls in education. Although the government has recently introduced free primary education, this does not apply to boarding schools, supplies needed e.g. books and uniforms. The best chance for young Maasai girls to gain education is through boarding schools where they will be housed, educated and generally protected from cultural ceremonies such as FGM, which they will certainly face if they have to attend to school from their own homes. NWWG targets at finding educational sponsorship for 30 Maasai girls each year to attend both primary and secondary schools.

Vision and Mission

Naserian Welfare Women Group (NWWG) is a registered community based organization operating within the Lolgorian area of TransMara district. Lolgorian is situated near Maasai Mara game reserve, 260 km south of Nairobi and 120 km from Narok town
NWWG's Vision
An empowered maasai woman free from FGM where human rights for all are upheld.

NWWG's Mission

To transform the Maasai women and girls educationally, culturally and economically into a modern self-reliant community without destroying their positive traditional value systems.

Main Goals and Objectives

1. To contribute towards eradication of FGM in line with WHO resolution (by 2015) in order to promote girl child education; improve women reproductive health, human rights position and elevation of the social-economic status of the Maasai woman.
2. To enhance community capacity and to participate in securing sustainable livelihoods for the Maasai people of Lolgorian region by putting in place programs that enable profitable participation for the community in the eco-tourism activities.
3. To provide clean water to the community by seeking the assistance of supporters/ donors to help in the drilling of boreholes. Clean and adequate water supply is a critical need as the water systems around the Mara region is now heavily polluted as a result of tourists’ camps and upcoming urban centres.
4. To provide better health care services to the community which at the moment lacks proper hospital facilities despite of the area being a high-risk area for disease such as Malaria, Typhoid and TB.
5. To initiate environment conservation measures for the benefit of the community, livestock and wildlife. The environment around the Mara region faces imminent degradation as a result of many tourist lodges and camps being built haphazardly and due to mushrooming of shopping centres.

Core Values

These core values form the basis of NWWG (CBO) organizational culture:
I. NWWG will strive to uphold honesty and transparency in all its dealings.
II. Integrity is a central issue in the running of NWWG
III. NWWG will strive to be transparent and accountable for the community and its donors.
IV. NWWG will strive to uphold justice and fairness in all the dealings.
V. NWWG will strive to provide social services that will improve the living standard and reduce poverty among the Maasai of the Mara region.
VI. NWWG shall endeavor to promote gender equity in all its program activities.
VII. NWWG shall endeavor to promote and protect respect for human rights in all its program activities.
VIII. NWWG will be responsive to the community and as such, will strive to promote the involvement and participation of the Maasai community (men, women and children) in its development program activities.

Experience and Approaches in fighting FGM

Experience and Approaches

Systematic reviews of experiences from many programmes in different countries have provided
knowledge on why FGM/C persists and what elements should be part of the methodology to abolish it. FGM/C interventions should be:
Contextualized:
The local conditions surrounding FGM/C, including the age at circumcision, the
type of cutting, the characteristics of the practitioners and the meaning and justification of the
practice must be the basis for all FGM/C projects.
Community-based.:
FGM/C is a community practice and is therefore most effectively abandoned
by the community acting together. Mothers are often aware that the practice causes harm, but
even so consider cutting to be the best for their daughters and a part of raising them properly.
This obligation is a social convention, and the social pressure tends to perpetuate the practice.
Various community-based approaches have been undertaken successfully. Public declarations of the commitment to abandon the practice have been important milestones and may take various forms, like pledge groups of parents promising not to cut theirs daughters, or a joint public declaration on the part of communities.
Participatory:
The most successful programmes are participatory in nature and imply a shift from
delivering messages and making judgemental statements, to facilitate dialogues. They also imply a shift from individual behaviour to collective change. Interventions need support from local
stakeholders and need to identify change agents.
The kind of support and the choice of change agents will vary, and may include community and religious leaders, teachers and health workers,various social groups and pledge groups.
Creating space for discussions on sensitive issues, in which people feel confident to share their
experience and views openly in a non-judgemental environment, tends to bring down the costs of FGM/C.
Holistic:
Awareness raising and abolition campaigns have a better chance of succeeding if FGM/C
is approached in a holistic way and related to other aspects of people’s lives. Even%