Maasai Women Development Organization(MWEDO)

The Elevate Prize will help my organization Maasai Women Development Organization (MWEDO) to boost systemic change in access to education and improve literacy for marginalised Maasai girls and young women through innovative scaling up of Mobile Learning Lab (MLL) technology to improve learning outcomes.Currently used in 53 countries, the MLL technology is designed to deliver quality schooling to students and young adults located in remote underserved communities where internet, school facilities, skilled teachers and educational materials are limited.Through partnership development the aim is to amplify MWEDO’s current work to increase access to education by scaling up the use of the preloaded MLL with educational programs and reach over 100,000 marginalised girls and young women in rural Maasai communities of Tanzania.
 The Elevate Prize support will help to:

• Increase access to education for over 100,000 girls and young women in 5 districts and 50 communities by 2025.
• Build partnerships and networks in education with teachers, parents, girls/women and communities needed to sustain interventions and learning.
• Increase use of social media, technologies, resource mobilization and communications in order to increase impact of our mission to empower girls and women in education. 

Thirty-five years ago at the age of 15, I was forced to marry a 60 years old man. I attempted unsuccessfully to run away from home twice to avoid the forced marriage. On my third attempt I was successfully rescued by good Samaritans and enrolled in school. My determination to go to school was never well understood by my family or my community due to cultural norms that require girls to follow traditional marriage rituals. I returned home after my education and promised my parents and the community that I will support them and the community to address issues such as poverty.

To fulfill my promise, I founded Maasai Women Development Organization-MWEDO in the year 2000. Under my leadership we established a school to increase access to education for marginalised girls in 2010. This was followed in 2012 by a medical facility to provide community healthcare to women and children.  

My vision is to see Maasai women and girls who are socially and economically independent and free from poverty.

My future goal is to increase access to education for over 100,000 girls and young women through quality education using innovative digital learning technologies. 

Maasai women and girls face various systemic issues which constrains their access to education. There are cultural, policy and economic factors which contributes to the lack of access to education for girls and young women in this community. Maasai patriarchal hierarchical culture forces girls into early marriages while underrepresentation in government leaves them behind in the decision making process. UNESCO estimates that 15% of Tanzanians remain illiterate and over 1.2 million children are out of school. The situation is worse in underserved 4.5 million Maasai people were 80% of women and girls are illiterate. COVID 19 pandemic has also aggravated the issues and increased girls and women vulnerability.

MWEDO was founded to improve the livelihoods of pastoralists Maasai women in Tanzania. MWEDO implements programs in secondary school education, community health and economic empowerment which have positively impacted the lives of over 300,000 people in districts of Tanzania.

MWEDO impact was recognized in 2008 when the then US President Bush visited MWEDO projects to learn about the results achieved. I was awarded the ‘Woman of Courage Award’ by the US Government in 2013 and honored by Tanzanian government in 2020 in recognition of my work in empowering girls through education. 

MWEDO would scale up the self-directed e-learning through the use of Mobile Learning Labs; technology by addressing the last-mile issues which constraints dissemination. Last mile issues include remote Maasai communities who lack internet connectivity and faces limited market of suppliers and providers of technologies to increase access to education. Once introduced and working, its lessons will stimulate demand from more schools and communities, attract more suppliers and increase more access to education for girls.

The approach is also innovative because of its emphasis in collaboration and working closely with Maasai communities, schools, girls/young women, and local authorities to scale up the learning technologies. This will enable participation, empowerment and a good environment for discussions and generate solutions for fundamental systemic issues.

Share learning will be used to attract partnership with private sector providers of technology and mobile services. The providers would learn about how MWEDO did it and use the knowledge to penetrate and supply remote and difficult markets with relevant technologies. Once sufficient private sector players with knowledge are in place, cost effectiveness will be achieved and will enable more private sectors players to replicate and scale up relevant technologies to other areas thus reaching more underserved communities. 

MWEDO hopes to expand its education activities to 5 districts and 50 community villages and reach out to over 100,000 marginalised girls and young women by 2025. The aim is to increase literacy and improve learning outcomes for girls in school and out of school using the innovative Mobile Learning Lab (MLL), a technology that can be used in rural settings without the need of internet connection.

• In collaboration with the Tanzania Ministry of Education, traditional leaders, women leaders, MWEDO would strategically forge partnership with at least 50 community schools and 5 local governments.
• MWEDO would train at least 2 two educators in each of the 50 schools on the use of the new Mobile Learning Technology as TOT’s for the schools.
• MWEDO would procure and install the Mobile Learning Lab, tablets and solar panels for the 50 school in the 5 communities.
• MWEDO Programme staff would work alongside each school while monitoring the progress and reporting and collecting data from each of the 50 schools in Tanzania.
• A comprehensive database will be maintained at the MWEDO head office for monitoring performance of learners and reporting feedback to the communities and the Ministry of Education. 

The current direct beneficiaries of MWEDO is 60,000 people. In one year MWEDO will serve an additional 40,000 through its programs in education, community healthcare and economic empowerment to reach a total of 100,000 people in rural underserved communities of Tanzania. The direct beneficiaries includes members of the women groups, girls in primary and secondary schools, schools teachers, traditional birth attendants, youth economic groups, community health volunteers and local government officials. The indirect beneficiaries include local communities, traditional leaders, NGOs, media, technology companies and financial institutions.  

MWEDO impact goal is improved livelihoods of Pastoralists Maasai women through increased access to education, economic opportunities and healthcare services. Specifically, the goal achieved through the following strategic objectives.

1. Promote women’s and girl’s rights through advocacy, leadership and participation in decision making.

2. Improve education access for disadvantaged women and girls through development of educational programmes.

3. Promote access to healthcare on maternal health, HIV/AIDS prevention, hygiene, sanitation and nutrition.

4. Empower women and girls economically through development of informal and small scale enterprises.

5. Strengthening partnerships and organizational capacity for quality services delivery.

MWEDO monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) framework is used to measure progress of implementation of interventions under the strategic objectives. The MEL framework includes several indicators which are measured at the impact, outcome and output levels. Baselines, verifiable indicators, source of verifications, and assumptions have been established at each level. For example in education increased access outcome is measured by number of girls with increased access indicator. On regular basis data/information is collected and analysed on the indicators progress of implementation against the established targets. Reports on progress are developed and shared periodically with management, the board and key stakeholders for decision making. Evaluations of impact is done annually to share learning, successes, challenges and receive feedbacks from stakeholders.

MWEDO's faces a number of barriers and is working on them as follows. 

Financial barriers: The financial sources of MWEDO include donor funding, members contributions and revenues from the medical services and handcraft products. Following the COVID19 pandemic donors have either diverted funds to emergency programs to address the spread of the virus or have scaled down funding. Members contributions also went down as families prioritised immediate needs and food reserves for fear of market disruptions due to lockdowns. Revenues from handmade products depended on tourism was also affected due to travel restrictions.

MWEDO is addressing the barrier by continuing to maintain relations with its donors and members through communication while exploring new funding opportunities to implement its programs.

Technical barriers. MWEDO faces challenges both in engaging certain technical experts and limited application of technology to deliver impact at scale. These technical issues are mostly expensive and beyond MWEDO reach. MWEDO continues to mobilize financial resources from donors to address this challenge. Winning the Elevate prize will help MWEDO to address the application of technology to increase access to education.

Cultural barriers. Maasai are very traditional people and their culture is hierarchical and mostly male dominated. This has resulted into socially constructed norms and behaviours which discriminate women and girls and thus curtails their rights to education and access to productive resources. MWEDO continues to address this issue through awareness raising, advocacy and empowerment of women. 

Political barriers. Maasai people have been marginalised from the decision making process at the local and national government levels. The marginalisation is a result of low levels of education, hence their representation in the decision making process is still very dismal. MWEDO is working to address this barrier through networking, building the voice, advocacy and lobbying for their participation and decision making process. 

Scaling Up Access to Education - MWEDO will leverage the platform to scale up its current programs in education through learning, knowledge sharing, and access resources to ensure technologies such the Mobile Learning lab technology with preloaded educational programs reaches as many marginalised girls and young women in rural Maasai communities and beyond in Tanzania.

Social Capital Fund for Education - Build partnerships with funders, networks and education partners, teachers and community members to sustain and support learning initiatives. The social capital fund initiative will help support schools and students with education materials, boarding fees, computers and solar energy.

Marketing and Social Media Needs - MWEDO is highly in need of social media and technology experts to improve marketing and branding of our organization including resource mobilization and communications that impact our mission to improve lives and empower women and girls.  

Partnership with Technology Organizations - The audience will be useful in reaching out and collaborate with technology based organizations such as Google, Microsoft and others who are ready to work with us to bring positive changes in education using relevant technologies that leads to transformation of learning outcomes in the underserved communities.

MWEDO is a women-led organization which highly value diversity and inclusion and uses participatory approaches to promote its leadership values. 

• Fairness and inclusion. MWEDO leadership value and respect others at work place and within society, we recognise that its part of our job to combat bios and discrimination. Inclusiveness is demonstrate in our organisation policies which promotes equal employment for both men and women and in all the programmes whereby youth (girls and boys), women, marginalised and disadvantaged people are included in support provided.
• Cultural diversity. MWEDO leadership truly recognise cultural diversity, perspectives and experiences of others, we understand and respect different cultural values. All activities conducted in communities are participatory and views of men and women are taken onboard.
• Empowerment and growth. MWEDO empowers women and youth. Support is provided equally to youth (boys & girls) and women to own land for productive uses and establish economic enterprises in livestock, and saving and credit schemes. We value growth and development among our staff and member community and personal advancement have been supported without discrimination.
• Partnership, Networking and social awareness - MWEDO embodies principals of social networking to create support and safety nets with members and partners alike.

After escaping from forced marriage and managed to complete education I began envisioning helping other girls so that they do not have to experience what I went through. The past 30 years have enabled me to acquire work, life experiences and practical skills in motivating, mobilising, building teams and alliances to develop and apply solutions to improve the communities. 

These efforts paid off positive results in increased recognition of our work by government and stakeholders, hosting the USA President George Bush in our education programmes in 2008 and received "The Woman of Courage Award" in 2013 through the American Embassy in Tanzania.

MWEDO programmes are designed through consultations with communities and key stakeholder to identify issues and propose solutions through participatory planning process. MWEDO strategic plan is shared with key actors for feedbacks and ensure key issues are incorporated before it is approved by the general assembly of over 10,000 members of MWEDO.

MWEDO team of staff comprises of advocates and education specialists with backgrounds similar to our beneficiaries. Some members of our team are young women and men who had benefitted from the MWEDO education programs and have come to give back to their communities as employees or volunteers. 

In 2010, MWEDO reviewed its strategic orientation due to high demands for our services against limited available resources. The high demand for services in education, healthcare, water and land resources from the communities resulted from efforts in women empowerment and participation. 

This was a turning point for MWEDO. Under my leadership, we took a decision to organise broad-based dialogues with stakeholders, community members, partners, donors, experts and advisors in order to develop a framework in which the aspirations and needs of the communities will be met. The dialogues resulted into the first MWEDO strategic plan for 2010-2015. 

The strategic plan was a road map for actions to be taken to strengthen the capacity to engage new partners and mobilise resources to implement programs. Through the plan improvements and expansion of education enabled reaching more women and girls through secondary school and adult literacy education. Furthering services to the community, MWEDO forged partnerships and established its own secondary school and medical facilities in 2010 and 2011 respectively. MWEDO was also able to promote women economic empowerment and by 2015, over 8000 women and girls accessed education, 120 business enterprises and saving and credits schemes established and 2500 women accessed land ownerships. 

MWEDO Adult Literacy Empowering Maasai women in Tanzania 

The Elevate Prize funding will help MWEDO achieve its goal of expanding its education programs to reach 100,000 marginalised girls and young women in 50 community villages within 5 districts by 2025. The aim is to increase the application of the innovative Mobile Learning Lab (MLL), a portable technology that can be used in rural settings without the need of internet connection to improve literacy and learning outcomes for girls in school and out of school. MWEDO will use the following approach to meet this goal.

• Forge partnership and collaboration with the Ministry of Education, traditional leaders, women leaders, 50 community schools located in 5 local governments.
• Build the capacity of 100 educators from the 50 schools on the use of the new Mobile Learning Technology as TOT’s for the schools.
• Procure and install the Mobile Learning Lab, tablets and solar panels in the 50 communities schools.
• Conduct mentoring, coaching at each school while monitoring by collecting data/information and sharing reports on the progress on the 50 schools.
• Operate a comprehensive database at MWEDO head office for monitoring performance of learners and reporting feedback to the communities and the Ministry of Education. 

MWEDO Current Partners;

1. Stephen Lewis Foundation - SLF  is  a Canadian based long time partner of MWEDO supporting education programs and community healthcare since 2011.

2. Every Mother Counts - EMC is a US based foundation supporting MWEDO intervention on maternal healthcare since 2017.

3. The Foundation for Civil Society- FCS is Tanzanian long time partner of MWEDO supporting women and Youth, land rights and economic empowerment since 2012.

4.TRIAS Tanzania - TRIAS support MWEDO women economic empowerment, women and youth businesses, savings and credit. TRIAS is MWEDO partner since 2015.

5. Global Funds for Women - GFW is a long time partner of MWEDO supporting movement building, women's rights interventions since 2003.

6. African Women Development Fund - AWDF supports MWEDO Women land and property rights initiatives since 2020.

7.Comic Relief - CR is a British charity which supports women leadership and participation including movement building against gender based violence since 2019.

8. Reach Out to Humanity - ROTH Canada supports the MWEDO secondary school and sponsorship for girls education since 2010.

9. GIRLS PHENOMON Project - Support education sponsorship for girls at MWEDO secondary school since 2017.