The East African Young Women’s Leadership Initiative Fundraiser

The East African Young Women’s Leadership Initiative fundraiser on December 6th was a success.  We have almost reached our goal of $3,000, enough money to support the education, living costs, rights training, mentoring, and leadership skill workshops for two women for one year.  We thank those who came to the fundraiser and those who donated.  If you would like to contribute, you can do so through our Crowdrise website. Thank you!

The night started off with singer-songwriter Joy Askew performing a few of her songs.  In addition to Mia MacDonald and Pamela Kraft, our partner at Tribal Link, speaking about the program, Grace Koutimet, from SIMOO, spoke about the role of Maasai women in the community and how educating Maasai women greatly assists the communities’ progress. Grace works directly with the young women in the initiative and spoke about the challenges young women face in the Maasai community. Not only do they take on a lot of responsibility (building the house, cooking, cleaning, taking care of children), they are also a commodity: when a daughter marries, the family receives cattle as payment. This is particularly prevalent as climate change affects the community and drought causes cattle to die, forcing fathers to marry their daughters at young ages in order to get more cattle.

In addition to Grace, the Deputy Ambassador of Kenya to the United Nations Dr. Josephine Ojiambo and her daughter Julie Ojiambo, a former Brighter Green intern, spoke about their involvement with the program and expressed thanks for the opportunities this program creates for these young women.

Lastly, we showed the new East African Young Women’s Initiative Program video at the fundraiser (see below). This video provides information about the program and introduces you to some of the young women as well as their school.

Brighter Green and Tribal Link thank all of those who attended and who were able to donate to the program. For more information please visit the Brighter Green page on the East African Young Women’s Leadership Initiative.