About Educate Amboseli

Educate Amboseli is dedicated to educating the Maasai children of Amboseli, Kenya. Our goal is to improve the quality of life in the whole Amboseli area while still keeping the Maasai culture and traditions intact.

Educate Amboseli founder, Scott Cohen, met Jacob Koite when he was ten in the summer of 2000 when Jacob was his walking guide. Jacob talked about how he realized the importance of education and wanted to spread his belief to all of Amboseli. Jacob was one of the few Maasai who finished secondary school and he started teaching at the age of 16. The school started under an acacia tree with three teachers and only 12 students. Now, what started under the acacia tree is the Enkongu Narok Primary School with over 200 kids, 8 teachers, and 10 classrooms. Children are taught English, Swahili, math, environmental studies and creative activites. Religion is informally taught throughout as most Maasai are Catholic. Some children have to walk up to 15 kilometers to get to the school each day. All of the teachers are Maasai and live at the school. Enkongu Narok Primary School would like to graduate as many students as possible to secondary school and then to university so that they can return to their communities to help improve the quality of life in their villages.

Unfortunately it is hard for the Maasai to raise money to pay for school tuition and many children suffer as a result. The main goal of Educate Amboseli is to sponsor the children who cannot afford to go to school so that they can receive the education they deserve.

Charitable Status

Educate Amboseli is a registered public charity exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are deductible under section 170 of the code.

Other Issues

Along with education, Jacob deals with many other issues that concern the Maasai community such as: AIDS awareness, prevention of female circumcision, tree planting, and environmental planning. He goes to neighboring villages to promote these ideas and brings the communities’ concerns to the government district officers. Jacob has also started a soccer league for the villages in his area as a way to keep the young men out of trouble and to educate them about these important issues.

Clean water is vital to the health of a village. Fresh water pumps are costly and rare in Amboseli, which means “salt dust” in the Maasai language. Also, where there is water it is often swamp water. With Scott Cohen’s help, Jacob’s village, Olasiti, built a water pump in 2003. This pump receives its water from the underground springs running from Mount Kilimanjaro. Many other villages as far as 6 kilometers away come to get their water from this pump.

Jacob would like to modernize the lives of the Maasai and raise their quality of life while maintaining the Maasai culture. Building a health facility and encouraging Maasai who have become educated in modern medicine to come back to their villages to help is an important issue. Presently, the community suffers from the lack of treatment for malaria and tuberculosis. Since there are no clinics in the area, the Maasai resort to traditional herbal methods of treatment. A solar panel and batteries would allow electricity, communication and technology to enter their lives. Having light at night would help the villages to keep the wildlife away.

About the Maasai of Amboseli

The Maasai who live in Amboseli National Park were originally nomads, raising cattle and goats and living in harmony with nature. Because of the establishment of water pumps and schools, they now live in semi-permanent villages. The Maasai do not hunt but live on the milk, blood and meat of the goats and cows. Only during times of drought do the young men move the cattle to better grazing pastures.

A traditional Maasai village in Amboseli has a thorny acacia branch fence around it for protection from the lions, cheetahs, and jackals. The goats and cows graze outside during the day, but are herded into the center of the village at night. The Maasai live in cow dung huts called manyattas; they are usually built in a circle.

The men and the women of Amboseli continue their traditional Maasai roles. The men make fences, deal with the cattle, and make fire. They carry with them at all times a walking stick, a club, and a knife. The women build the manyattas from the cow dung, care for the children, and do the washing and fetching of water. Women are also the main bread winners in the Maasai community as they sell their beadwork at local markets to tourists. Every village has a medicine man who uses herbal remedies to treat the ailments of the villagers.