Teaching Maasai women to earn from skills

Doris Dikir (right) with Murugi Kenyatta during one of the trainings in Kajiado County.

Nairobi; Kenya: For many years, Doris Dikir depended on the money she made from selling beads at Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi.

Her fortunes, however, changed when she met Murugi Kenyatta and Marsha Janger, who came from the US. The two women taught her and other women how to grow their businesses.

According to Lanoi Parmuat, the convener of the meeting between the three, Maasai women are often downtrodden because they have no economic power.

Being able to communicate in Maasai, Dikir helped Janger and Kenyatta organise a training workshop to pass on the skills to women in Naretoi and Kitengela in Kajiado County. The training reached over 300 women in a span of about two weeks.

Janger says their mission was to teach the women to make money for themselves by using their new skills. They came up with concepts that could see the Maasai products permeate the US market.

“The ideas and creativity of these women have been seen all over the world with other people making lots of money from them but these women who do the donkey work barely have enough to keep them going. We are, therefore, teaching them how to make marketable products and to directly access the market,” says Kenyatta.

“We found that the women were selling milk to people who added value and made a lot of money while they remained in poverty. This prompted us to teach them to add value to the milk by making yoghurt and cheese,” says Janger

Dikir has been to Tanzania to learn new ways of spurring community development and says the projects she saw in Simanjiro could be replicated in her community to better lives.

"Even when Janger and Kenyatta go back to the US, we will continue spreading the message," says Dikir.

Having undergone the female cut and been married off to a man old enough to be her father, Dikir also passionately campaigns against female genital mutilation.