About Africa Schools of Kenya (ASK)

Enriching Maasai lives with the development and implementation of educational programs while respecting their traditions and cultural way of life.

Africa Schools of Kenya (ASK) works in conjunction with the Maasai people located in Kajiado County outside Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. ASK facilitates and underwrites the implementation of educational programs, encouraging awareness on leadership and life skills, with an emphasis on women’s rights, environmental and financial sustainability, wildlife conservation, and cross-cultural diversity. ASK provides scholarships for students from elementary school through college, which gives marginalized children the human right and opportunity to attend school. Our ARP program protects young girls from the harmful practice of female genital mutilation. The critically needed mobile Health Wagon serves the needs of the Maasai living in five hard to reach communities.

Since 2007, ASK’s focus has been on the more than 1200 Maasai people of Esiteti, including the 580 students that attend Esiteti Primary School. In partnership with James Ole Kamete and his communities, ASK provided funding for the new school in collaboration with Tortilis Camp, Kenya Wildlife Services and Kenya Wildlife Trust. In 2009, the Esiteti community relocated to the newly constructed, eight classroom school.

Through our Student Scholarship Fund, Girls College Education Fund and Teacher Certification College Fund, we help provide funding for students from nursery school through college. Maasai children, especially girls, are given a better opportunity in life with an education.

ASK developed the Alternative Rite of Passage (ARP) program, which is a modern, two-day coming-of-age ceremony. ARPs take place three times a year at Esiteti School and support the community’s decision to stop the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).

In 2019, ASK launched a mobile Health Wagon, in collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, staffed in part by Esiteti School graduates. The Health Wagon serves the needs of over 5,000 children and adults living at Esiteti and four neighboring communities including Embarinkoi, Ilmarba, Oldule and Olmoti.

The Maasai Culture

Occupying the fertile grassland of the Rift Valley and surrounding uplands, the pastoral and nomadic Maasai are one of the most renowned Kenyan tribe. Maasailand covers an area of approximately 100,000 square miles (160,000 kilometers) in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania with a population of over 400,000 Maasai people. For centuries the Maasai have moved cattle in a constant search for water and fresh grazing.

Tall and lean with brilliant red cloths tied at the shoulder, the morani (warriors) can usually be seen armed with a spear, sword or club. The enkang is the basic economic and social unit of the Maasai, where a semi-permanent grouping of several families live together in 10 to 20 huts encircled by an impenetrable thorn fence. The low, circular huts (constructed by the women in the group) consist of interwoven branches plastered together with a combination of mud and cow dung. Although the women are often seemingly in the background of the cultural context, they are the backbone of the culture; they build houses and look after the children. They also have influential roles in enabling girls to attend school.

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