Twala Cultural Center - Women's Group, Laikipia, Kenya

The Twala Cultural Center is a community-support program started by the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project for the women of the villages nearby their scientific study area. The people are Maasai, and are struggling economically as they try to maintain their traditional pastoral way of life.

This video shows the Twala ladies preparing tea (chai) from the fruit of the cactus Opuntia, which is an invasive species that was an enormous problem for them - the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project helped them develop a way to turn the problem plant into a financial benefit by making chai and syrup, which they are marketing to lodges and tourists. They even developed two drinks - the Twala Sunset and the Drunken Monkey.

The video also shows the ladies famous Maasai beadwork, which they offer for sale at their cultural center, which is located outside Nanyuki, Kenya, in the Laikipia region north of Mt. Kenya.

Dr. Shirley Strum is the director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project. A professor of anthropology at University of California at San Diego, Dr. Strum has been studying baboons in Kenya for more than 30 years. She is a partner of the African Conservation Centre in Nairobi, where her main office is based. African Conservation Fund assists this and other projects around East Africa.

Filmed by Dr. Debbie Nightingale.

For more information, see: http://www.baboonsrus.com

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Kenya
• Maasai
• baboons
• cultural
• center
• conservation
• Uaso
• Ngiro
• Baboon
• Project
• Shirley
• Strum