Maasai women's quest for an education

Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day - a day celebrated across the world to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Kenya's Maasai women are some of the most marginalised in the country, with limited access to education.

Al Jazeera's Catherine Soi reports from the southern town of Kajiado, where a women's group is striving to change this.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• africanews
• aljazeera
• Catherine
• Soi
• international
• womens
• day
• Kenya
• Maasai
• literacy
• education
• challenges
• inequality
• developing
• countries
• southern
• town
• of
• Kajiado
• marginalisation

[GGLebo23]

This may be off topic, but Maasai people have such nice clothes!

[IrisMG]

Unless the women are free, nobody is free. Africa needs to learn this... Create a new tradition of empowerment for women and girls. Status quo is getting them nowhere.

[bboyzshannon]

apparently their philosophy and standards of their basic english is better than some of the developed country. look for ":god grew tired for us" in national geographic

[ddsharper]

3. The colonial government was concerned that the Masai cattle were damaging savanna used by giraffe,wildebeest and elephants important to tourism revenues. In addition, the Masai found themselves in competition for land with agriculturalists and commercial cash crop estates. from afrodesium.

When you destroy an ancient culture and take over their land, it is a matter of time before they become like the barbarians who invaded and interfered and destroyed.

[ddsharper]

2. near European estates (for fear they would contaminate the European herds) and they weren't allowed to sell their cattle on the European dominated market. The British government saw the Maasai raiding practices as barbaric and aggressive and took steps to stop them by fining them, imprisoning them or confiscating their cattle.Grazing was further hampered by the National Park Ordinance of 1945 which established large game reserves. from afrodesium

[ddsharper]

1. The first major challenge to the Maasai came in 1900 when the boundary between German formed Tanganiyka and British formed Kenya sliced directly through Maasailand. Later the colonial treaties of 1911 and 1912 forced the Maasai off of the central highlands north of the Uganda-Mombassa railroad into a reserve in southern Kenya. Their dry-season water holes and grazing lands were stripped from them by the Europeans. They were not allowed to graze their cattle -from afrodiseum

[ddsharper]

@Viracocha711 interference, although clandestine, on African peoples. As far as mutilation, that is their tradition, not ours. As far as abuse- it's a direct result of colonialism and barbarism from European values. It's no different than what results in American ghettos, created by the credos of white supremacy and the dumping of drugs into the ghettos. Blame the victims and analyze simplistically- that's the way of the European. Judge those he's destroyed and never take responsibility.

[ddsharper]

@Viracocha711 - I am not going to argue the point with you. Unless you understand the poison of colonialism and European invasion of Africa, you cannot understand the effects on the people. Everything Europe touches is ruined in favor of white supremacy. What you consider laziness is displacement, cruelty tradition and way of life a response to destruction of their society. Unless you study Africa, your perspective will be to judge the responses to colonialism and responses to continued

[luc649]

Most beautiful classroom ever !

[Viracocha711]

@ddsharper NO! You are trying to avoid my original point! The British & Colonialism have NOTHING to do with the abuse these women endure...They are abused, beaten, genital mutilation, raped, sold as property and YES forced to do most of the hard labor including building their own homes! Why you, one who claims to know so much about the Maasai, choses to ignore this EVIL DISGUSTING FACT or make excuses for the heart breaking abuses these women endure is beyond me!

[FatimaEgypt]

I wish if i could help them.&learn their amazing handcraft.