Update: 5/22/07

Beads for Education, Advancement, Development and Success (BEADS)

In southern Kenya, the colorful Maasai tribe continues to lead a traditional pastoralist lifestyle, walking many miles with their livestock in search of forage and water and returning to their small permanent encampments, known as a manyattas, each evening.  It is hard to describe the relationship the Maasai have with their livestock, but it is a special bond.   Cattle are viewed as something akin to heavenly beings; they provide status and income to each male member of the manyatta; their milk and small quantities of blood provide sustenance; and occasionally they are slaughtered for meat.  The Maasai’s reverence for their cattle is reflected in the sleeping arrangements in the manyatta.  Upon returning each evening, the livestock are brought directly into the center of the settlement for the night, rather than being relegated to an outlying enclosure.  This arrangement ensures that the beloved animals are not preyed upon by wild animals or marauding humans.

Despite this seemingly idyllic lifestyle, “modern” issues such as the education of girls, the continuing practice of female genital mutilation at puberty, the division of grazing land with permanent fencing, and HIV/AIDS are all concerns that the BEADS program is addressing. 

Although recent laws passed in Kenya provide free education through grade eight, the public school system is overloaded and under funded, perhaps most acutely in the Maasai regions.  With a student/teacher ratio in the 50:1 range, and few books or other supplies, the education is rudimentary at best.  As is the case with many families, even providing their school age children with uniforms and supplies becomes such a burden that girls are often kept at home where they can be of better use to the family.  In Maasai culture, these girls would likely then be sent into an arranged marriage at an early age.  Thus, the primary goal of the BEADS program is to educate girls, to provide them with a superior school experience, and provide funding to enable them to continue through high school and perhaps university.   Toward this end, the BEADS program has partnered with a private school in the small community of Isinya (an hour’s drive south of Nairobi), known as Top Ride School, where about half of the 350 student body is comprised of girls supported through the BEADS program.  These girls are chosen for their academic abilities and financial need, and their pride shows in their school work. Additionally, there are extracurricular activities such as sewing, computer classes, baking and an extensive library program available to the BEADS girls.

One thing I really liked about the education program is that there is a built in “payback” system for the graduates.  They are required to put in at least a year in teaching at a government (public) school upon graduation from high school.  Eight of the first   graduates have finished this interning year and are enrolled in college in Kenya.  In 2007, nine more high school graduates will begin the interning year.  There are 267 more BEADS-sponsored girls who will follow this tradition and build a strong sustainability factor for the program via the payback requirement.  Each of the sponsored girls is counseled before entering college to select a career that will be socially and economically valuable to her local community.  

A sensitive issue in the Maasai culture is the continuing practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), euphemistically referred to as ‘circumcision’ during the important coming of age ceremony for girls moving into womanhood, occurring during the early to mid-teen years.  This procedure, which involves the whole or partial removal of the labia and clitoris without anesthesia and without sterile conditions, often results in short term infection and in long term scarring and childbirth complications.  The concept of an ‘age set’ is fundamental to Maasai culture, and one’s acceptance in the society is dependent upon inclusion in an age set.  Thus it is unthinkable that a girl would not undergo the coming of age ceremony because she would forever be considered a child, not a woman.  But FGM has been outlawed for some years in Kenya, and this practice has come under the fire by various human rights and women’s advocacy groups as well.   The director of the BEADS program has slowly and carefully addressed this issue, working with a well-respected midwife and circumciser, as well as the tribal leader for a large swath of Maasai in Southern Kenya.  Without condemning the practice, she merely provided information, and carefully built a relationship with these leaders based on trust and mutual respect.  Over a period of years, these tribal leaders also became strong advocates for the discontinuation of FGM, but then the task was to find an “alternative” coming of age ceremony which didn’t include FGM.  So far, the BEADS program has provided the framework for this alternative ceremony for seven girls – the first of whom was the midwife/circumcisor’s daughter.  Two girls at the Top Ride school came to talk to me one evening about their experience, and although they were shy, it came to light that they were very pleased to have the alternative to FGM (the ceremony is in all other ways identical), and that they felt accepted by the community.

 A third issue that the BEADS program addresses is land division.  Presently, the Maasai communities own large tracts of land as a group.  In this arrangement, all are free to move about with their livestock, and all share the meager fodder and water resources successfully.  In the Amboseli National Park lands, the group ranch also allows the game animals to roam freely.  However, some Maasai have become alarmed of late because there has been whispers at high government levels that these group ranches may not be allowed in the future, and some communities have begun subdividing the ranches, and fencing individual plots of a few acres each.  Given the very poor soil quality and scarcity of water, this arrangement not only will spell the end to the Maasai customs, it will also bring environmental degredation on so many levels. From a financial perspective, as the numbers of game animals dwindle due to the fencing constraints, this may spell the end of the tourism industry in the area, and the Maasai will lose their only outside source of revenue.  The BEADS program is sending out trained Maasai warriors to discuss this issue among the group ranch owners throughout the Amboseli National Park region.

In addition, the BEADS-trained Maasai warriors also discuss HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention when they travel around to the group ranches.  Rather than a white foreigner bringing these topics to the communities, the Maasai warriors are already known and respected in the communities, and do a very effective job of spreading the word about these topics.

In sum, the BEADS program started with one American woman on safari, and some   years later has evolved into a multi-pronged powerhouse, accomplishing everything from educating girls at quality schools, bending cultural norms in positive ways, and bringing adult education  topics such as land division and HIV/AIDS to people in outlying areas. It all works so well, and the young women who will be graduating high school in greater numbers each year will give back to the community, creating a bright future for the entire region.