Mara Discovery Center Renovation

Mara Discovery Center Renovation

The Mara Discovery & Community Empowerment Center in Aitong has been a well-loved resource since 2008 for families throughout the region — providing life skills and vocational training for adults (especially women), conservation education for youth, recycling, a venue for conservancy meetings, public access to IT, and many other services not found elsewhere. Mara Discovery also hosts meetings for other organizations, as there is nothing else like it in the region. Amos Kipeen founded this center, and the patrons, employees, and volunteers are all local Maasai. Mara Discovery has been largely self-sustaining through the services it provides.

The center was in need of a little TLC! Thanks to a grant from the Rotary Club of Woodside / Portola Valley (California) and a few private donors, we renovated and enhanced the center in 2020, patching and painting every surface inside and out, upgrading the IT, repairing the recycling center, landscaping the grounds, and much more.

We added a Wildlife & Children's Library, which was the #1 request from patrons, and it's now the first community library in the area. The wildlife materials are valuable to the many students, tour guides, conservation leaders, and researchers in this region. We also added a Tree Nursery, providing seedlings and enhancing after-school nature training for students. To kick off the renovated center, we held a Writing Competition for local students in January 2021.

In 2024, we're developing the Maasai Mara Center for Sustainability just north of Aitong, beginning with Lemek Hills Purified Water and a Public Library and Education Center, applying our learnings from this successful smaller center.