Maasai Programme

Keystone Legacy works with local partners to alleviate extreme poverty and improve education through clean energy, permaculture & rangeland regeneration

Our carbon positive programme uses the expertise and power of business, NGOs, CBOs & government to deliver scalable solutions that can drive exponential impact over time.

Key Pillars

We recognise the relevant national and international development strategies
  • Kenya Vision 2030
  • Kenya Big Four Agenda
  • Indigenous Peoples Rights 
  • UN Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) & the Agenda 2030. 

One of their overarching themes is to ensure that Indigenous People’s voices, priorities and concerns are not only raised but also addressed. Under the Community Land Act 2016, Kajiado County Government plays a pivotal role in coordinating spatial planning and the communities in land use plans. 

Challenges

The Maasai in Kenya, like other indigenous and ethnic minority groups elsewhere, have maintained their traditional livestock-oriented lifestyles and continued to be on the fringe of the market economy and development

Global issues such as climate change & overpopulation coupled with diminishing land sizes and accessibility, declining land productivity, frequent droughts, escalating levels of poverty and food shortages, mean that the Maasai can no longer support themselves from subsistence livestock herding

It is now necessary for the Maasai to diversify their sources of livelihood in order to cope and mitigate the hardships and challenges that confront them

Keystone Legacy addresses several development challenges with the prevailing issues being extreme poverty & land degradation.

Location

Amboseli, Kenya

The Approach

Aligned with Kajiado County Integrated Development Plan 2018-2022, AEMP 2008 and AEMP 2018, the need for this programme was determined through an ethnographic and feasibility study in February 2019, commissioned by Dr Tom Ondicho, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nairobi and Keystone

The studies were all carried out with the community through a facilitative and non-prescriptive method of analysis to enable the Maasai to identify their challenges and find routes to address them.

Our findings were captured in a report and supported by a film documentary with further site visits in July and August 2019.