Purity, a difficult start and a lot of perseverance
Purity (1993) managed to escape from an arranged marriage after primary school and was able to go to secondary school thanks to help of her teachers. She completed secondary school with very good results and managed to get a teachers’ training afterwards. Continuing her studies at university was her big dream. Purity wanted to start teaching other Maasai Girls to help them realise their dreams.
Attending university
With the support of StandUp4Talent, Purity was able to start at Kenyatta University Nairobi, Bachelor of Education, Early Childhood Studies in September 2016. She worked very hard, but had to interrupt her studies from time to time. Due to beautiful life events such as the birth of her son Lorenzo. But also due to teacher strikes and lockdowns related to the corona pandemic.
At our visit to Purity in 2017, she told us that her parents now fully respect her choices. They are very happy that she followed this study. On our next visit to Purity in 2023, her mother came specially to us, walking 20 kilometres, to thank us for sponsoring her daughter! And the next day she had to walk another 20 kilometres back to her village! Francis, Purity’s husband, also fully supports her and is very proud of her.
Graduated and working for the community
Purity completed her studies in 2022 and now works as a teacher in the local primary school.
She also organises discussion groups for teenage girls to boost their self-confidence and assertiveness. Because of the traditional way they are raised, many Maasai girls have learned to be shy and submissive towards their parents, teachers and village elders. If they become more confident in standing up for themselves, they will also be better able to express their wishes for their future.
Impact on the whole community
In 2022, Purity met Faith, one of our other students. They joined hands, and are now working together on various projects in their villages. They have involved their fellow villagers in their projects by setting up a CBO (community-based organisation).
These initiatives by Faith and Purity have generated a lot of positive energy, ambitions, beautiful plans and hope for a better future in Tikoishi and Orpirikata.
The Friends of the Maasai Foundation is involved in the realisation of these plans.
The first projects of the CBO’s in Tikoishi and Orpirikata were mainly realised by women:
• Establishing community gardens to grow vegetables for their own consumption and for sale to others;
• Improving water supply, for own consumption, for livestock and for the vegetable gardens;
• Undertaking various training courses in Laikipia (Permaculture Farm), to set up and maintain the gardens in an ecologically responsible manner, without harming nature and its rich wildlife;
• Establishing kitchen gardens, vegetable gardens just behind the house and planting fruit/food trees and using them to grow food for their own consumption;
In the meantime, the men have also enthusiastically joined in, and the projects now are embraced by the whole community.
Thanks to this amazing collaboration between Purity and Faith, the impact of their individual development has extended to their entire community.
We are very proud of their tremendous commitment. We can only sponsor a limited number of students, but through fantastic women like Purity and Faith, we can contribute to a better future for the whole of their communities and the Maasai population in general.
