Among the world’s best bargains is helping an underprivileged Maasai girl go to school and receive the transformative power from an education.
Supporting education is particularly important in 2021 because the coronavirus pandemic forced millions of girls to return home when schools were closed last March. The United Nations estimates the pandemic may push 13 million girls into a child marriage.
Even in the Laikipia area around Nanyuki, Kenya many young Maasai girls had to choose between being hungry or marring an older man. This is illegal, but the government in Kenya is unable to stop this practice under the the current dire conditions.
A girl’s only chance to survive this disaster is to attend school, but this is not easy. All secondary schools require a $400-500 yearly tuition fee to cover the cost of educational and boarding costs. This is simply impossible for many Maasai, and especially the girls who no longer have a father or loss both parents. The only jobs available pay only a few dollars each week.
Maasai Education and Empowerment Today (MEET) is excited to have the funds to support 12 girls for 2021, but we wish we could support more.
Below you can read a letter written recently by a young woman that MEET supports. You will read in her own words the conditions that she and others are currently living under.
Source: Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times, “ Choose a Gift Than Changes Lives” November 22, 2020
