The Maasai American Organization (MAO) is a small non-profit organization dedicated to grassroots community development.  The MAO concentrates its community mobilization efforts within the Siana Location of the Mara Division in the Narok District of western Kenya.  The Siana Location is directly adjacent to the eastern border of the famed Maasai Mara Game Reserve.  The people in this rural area are primarily Maasai living in a traditional pastoral culture.

The MAO has one full time employee, Agnes Sereti Meja, a young educated Maasai woman. She resides in Megwarra on the grounds of the Siana Boarding Primary School.  There she serves as a community development facilitator working with various community–based organizations (CBO) within the Siana Group Ranch. While doing this work she is also serving as an excellent role model for our scholarship girls.

Two Kenyan women, Lydia Masikonte and Tiito Mpetti, and two American women, Lea Pellett and Camilla Buchanan, formed the Maasai American Organization (MAO) in the year 2000.  Both Lydia and Tiito were passionately about the need to educate young Maasai girls, who traditionally did not attend school and were often married by age 13-15.  The provision of scholarships for the education of girls was the first priority of the MAO, and remains our number one priority today.  In addition to scholarships, the MAO has donated funds for classroom construction and for classroom materials.

The MAO also supports projects for the improvement of community health. We are working on projects to protect springs, to build school latrines and hand washing stations, to encourage the use of point-of-use water purification with Waterguard, a Kenyan manufactured chlorine water purification project.

The MAO-Kenya is a non-governmental organization registered with the Kenyan NGO Board.  The MAO-USA is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501-C (3) non-profit corporation.  The total annual budget of the MAO is approximately $25,000 with revenues coming from small grants from foundations, the sale of crafts from Kenya by MAO volunteers, and contributions solicited by MAO volunteers and Board Members.

Board of Directors

Lydia Masikonte Businesswoman, Liam Communications Nairobi, Kenya

Tiito Mpetti Hospitality and tourism industry Narok, Kenya Titto died at the tragically young age of 38 on April 3, 2006. To honor her memory, the MAO remains firmly committed to her vision of providing Maasai girls with educational opportunities.

Lea Pellett Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Emeritus Christopher Newport University Newport News, VA

Camilla Buchanan, M.D., M.P.H. Womancare of Williamsburg Williamsburg, VA