THE MKURU MAASAI COMMUNITY NEEDS YOUR HELP.

"The job at Mkuru Training Camp (MTC) saved me and my family from extreme poverty".

Jeremiah is 42 years old and lives in Mkuru’s Maasai village.
"It was difficult for us to find a job and integrate into the community. Our nomadic people have always lived on sheep farming, accustomed to travelling in the African steppes to follow the cycle of nature. The climate crisis, deforestation and uncontrolled use of resources have changed our lives and starved our people. Thanks to Istituto Oikos, which takes care of our community, we can see a future for us and our children.
Jeremiah holds the task of keeping Mkuru Training Camp clean, a commitment he carries out with great professionalism and precision. "My work at MTC is hard but it gives me a reason to live: we Maasai men are great workers and knowing that we can provide for our community gives us new hope.

"I have a wife and three children aged 6, 9 and 12, Nemburis, Rosi and Nashipai. We live in a small house with a metal roof."

Timotheo is the night watchman at Mkuru Training Camp.
Timotheo's wife takes care of household chores, such as providing food, wood for cooking and heating and drinking water: to get to the well she is forced to walk long, uneven and dangerous stretches, carrying many litres of water on her shoulders. During the day Timotheo helps his children to study and immediately after dinner he starts the night shift.
"With the money I earn, I can pay the school expenses for Nemburis, Rosi and Nashipai: they are academic kids, school for them is a new world where they learn things that neither my wife nor I know. We are trying to save money so that we can send our children to school: without my job, my children will not be able to continue their studies".

Sara is 42 and a mother of five.

The youngest is 8 years old and the oldest daughter, Lesikar, has just turned 27: "Lesikar is a real blessing because she helps me a lot with her brothers while I am at work to feed my children. My work is the only source of income for our family."
Sara lives in the Maasai village and works at Mkuru Training Camp as an assistant cook: "This is our salvation: with what I earn I can buy food, medicine, books and notebooks for my children. I like working here, I have the opportunity to meet people who come from faraway countries and who, with their stories, make me travel with my imagination.

Janeth is 24 years old, a proud young Maasai woman and works in the small social enterprise called Tanzania Maasai Women Art - TMWA, which Oikos Institute has helped to create.

Mkuru Training Camp (MTC) hosts the handcrafted products made by Maasai women: "Thanks to MTC I have the opportunity to support my parents and my 2-year-old son. Tourists buy my accessories and I am very proud of it because I know that what I create arrives in faraway countries and many other people see what I can accomplish".
In addition to Janeth, 200 other women have a stable income, thanks to the production and sale of accessories. With these funds, Maasai women in Mkuru can guarantee food security and medical care for their children. In addition, these small businesses, which work with natural methods such as vegetable skin tanning, help to protect the land and local natural resources, while preserving a thousand-year-old tradition that was in danger of disappearing.

The forests are an essential resource for the community of Mkuru and it is thanks to Abraham's work that we can protect them from degradation and deforestation.

"I am 38 years old, living in the Maasai village of Mkuru with my wife Tumaini and our four children: Mariamu aged 13, Yohana aged 9, Monica aged 7 and little Filipo aged 5. I try to teach them the value of our forests, the great respect with which I work every day to protect them. They are our life.
Abraham works at the Mkuru Trainig Camp (MTC) as a Village Game Scout, guardians of the environment who every day watch over the community forests so that no trees are felled to produce charcoal, check that the areas dedicated to forests are not destroyed to make room for grazing and watch over all the natural resources on which the lives of the Maasai people depend. Without them, we could not protect the wealth of Tanzania's natural heritage.