"Nashipai" is the Maasai word for "Happiness". Apart from helping the school with financial aids, we also want to give the girls self-esteem and confidence. Since the still existing inequality in genders, they have to understand, being a woman means also having equal rights and having a chance to a achieve goals and dreams. Therefore we gather the girls and women of the community and discuss topics like sexual education and FGM. FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is still being practised in this very community.
For us it is important to reach the girls before they turn twelve years old. This is the age in which they get circumcised and married off immediately after. We go to their homes, talk to their mothers (who are mostly very willing to send them to school) and bring them to Naning'oi Girls Boarding School. In most cases the fathers refuse to send their girls to school. This is due to the process of marrying them off. The future husband has to pay lots of money and cows to get the girl. As a result most gils cannot come back home and have to stay in school also during holidays.
Our work includes working towards the liberation of more of these girls as well as supporting Naning'oi Girls Boarding School. This requires help during school holidays, to keep the girls at school, as going home would be a trip of no return and result in marriage.
Another major task is to constantly feed the amount of girls since food and water is always restricted. The drought in Kenya which can be up to nine months impedes the supply of water tremendesly.
The number of girls fleeing to school is increasing weekly. The capacities of the school are restricted by lack of water, food, teachers, pens and books. To supply the girls with all this we need to get an ongoing financial aid. More than 500 girls are still left out there waiting to get a chance to escape from what they have to expect.
This is Nantoyie on the day she ran away to school. One day before her wedding. The thing on her head has a cultural meaning. It is worn by girls after they go through FGM and is removed after she get healed, to Show she now became a woman and can get married any time from then.