Oliveseed

Our Mission

To empower marginalized rural communities through equal access to quality education, sustainable livelihoods for women, and clean water to drink.

WHY MAASAI MARA, KENYA?

In the Maasai Mara region of southwestern Kenya, we tackle the goals of our mission holistically. The Mara is one of the most marginalized regions of East Africa. Only 11% of young people here enroll in secondary school, and the area has the highest dropout rate and highest teen pregnancy rate in Kenya. When families can't afford to send their children to school (which often happens), girls are usually the ones to drop out and are often forced into early marriage. An estimated 66% of girls in the region are still going through FGM.

We transform the poorest public schools in the Mara, both primary and secondary, by setting up high-quality resources including libraries and science labs and providing literacy and writing opportunities. Resources these schools have never had. We also help teen girls stay in school through scholarships and by distributing sanitary kits so they don't need to leave school once a month. We firmly believe that children in the poorest regions of the world should have access to the same advantages that children in more privileged places have; and we've found that outfitting the poorest public schools with meaningful resources changes this trajectory for the greatest number of students.

C6FBA62F-6D35-4144-AA95-32762E195ECC_1_201_a_edited.jpg

Most adult women in the Maasai Mara lack literacy and marketable skills, as they did not have opportunities for education when they were young. And yet, they hold their families together through the hard work of domestic life. We run the co-operative Oliveseed Women's Work Center as a platform for sustainable income-generating work for women through beadwork arts, sewing, and capacity-building training. When women make their own income, they use it to uplift their families, including paying school fees to keep their kids in school. And day after day, we witness tremendous joy and self-confidence blossom in the women at our Work Center.

We are also addressing serious health challenges in the Mara community through clean water and sanitation facilities. Our developments all use clean renewable energy and employ members of the community.

7512B3AB-8E1F-4F59-AC78-B167C7AED6B6_1_105_c_edited_edited_edited.png

WHY RURAL MOROCCO?

In our legacy program in Morocco, we continue to boost learners at rural schools and villages through libraries and support for English literacy. We found that the communities where we work, especially in Amazigh areas, had little or no access to learning and knowledge resources. Today, after 10 years of inspiring a culture of reading, our program in Morocco has evolved to a nationwide short story competition for rural youth, elevating voices previously unheard. This program is now expanding to include young writers in Kenya and the U.S.