The school changing lives of Maasai youth

On the slopes of a steep escarpment in Maasai Mara’s Pardamat Conservancy, Narok County, 40 young men and women listen as an instructor explains charts and diagrams on the board. In an adjacent room, computer lessons are underway and for some, this is the first time they are interacting with such modern technology.

The Wildlife and Tourism College of Maasai Mara has become a magnet attracting young men and women from the local community who would otherwise have been taken hostages to local customs.

The college welcomed its first students in May 2023 though it was officially launched in April 2024 and aims to provide local youth with skills, training and knowledge needed to help them earn a livelihood from the tourism industry, a major activity in the region. 

Studies consist of five key programs including housekeeping and laundry, front office management, food production, tour guiding, and wildlife management. Apart from the diploma course in wildlife management that runs for two years, the other certificate courses run for a year.

The school is registered with Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TVETA) with programs under Kenya Institute of Curricular Development (KICD), with some exams administered by Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC).

In the future, the college hopes to start National Industrial Training Authority (NITA) accredited programs including beauty therapy, hairdressing, and motorcycle mechanics.

Emily Lemein hails from a family of six. Upon completing high school, she started to rear chickens to make ends meet. She has an elder brother currently pursuing a course in electrical engineering at Maasai Mara University.

Emily could not join the university due to financial constraints and opted for the equally productive courses at WTC, studying front office management and housekeeping.

“My father was happy when I got here,” she says during a break in the studies. “When a Maasai girl gets educated, she becomes a role model in society.”

Ken Yenko from Olderikesi worked as room steward in a safari camp shortly after completing his secondary school education in Mulot. During his stint at the camp, Yenko admired how the computer literate staff navigated the web with ease.

“I had never done anything with a computer before,” says Yenko as he sits in the computer lab, his Maasai regalia fluttering in the afternoon breeze coming in through the door. “I only saw people with laptops. Today, I can type, send emails, give power point presentations and send photos to my friends. We will change Maasailand with this kind of education.”

For many of the young men and women, their quest for such education stems from the fact that livestock keeping is being affected by climate change, altering the way the Maasai have lived for centuries.

According to Solomon Mpusya, a wildlife management student at the college, locals can see the impact of droughts or floods but hardly understand the causes.

“In the months when it should be raining, no rain comes. When it should be dry, it pours. The changing climate affects herbivores, disrupting the food chain in Maasai Mara. Our studies here will help our community plan and mitigate for such disruptions. We do not need ‘experts’ from outside to come and tell us how to plant trees and how not to pollute the environment,” says Mpusya.

The college is an expansion of Koiyaki Guiding school, an older institution that operated for close to 20 years in Naboisho Conservancy.

Koiyaki was the brainchild of Jackson Looseyia, one of Kenya’s acclaimed wildlife guides and a former commentator for BBC’s Big Cat Diary series.

Others were Ron Beaton, Rusei Ole Soit and Dickson Kaelo who heads the Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association. That school produced some of the most famous tour guides working in the tourism industry all over Kenya.

Moriaso Nabaala, a conservation biologist and the principal at WTC has been with the college since Koiyaki's inception. Guiding,He says there was a need to expand the college by having more courses and  enrolling more students. 

The Maasai community, he adds, now has a college where their young sons and daughters can enroll, something their parents never had the opportunity to do. With a rising population, he says this presents a shift in terms of community structure where access to higher education has been low for years.

“While the college receives students from all over Kenya, a big percentage comes from this landscape. These will access the job market in the wildlife and tourism industry in Kenya and beyond. You have Maasai children go to primary, and some to high school. Then you have a challenge when it comes to accessing colleges. You find some students get A and B grades and proceed to colleges and universities while others get C or D grades who can be absorbed in this college. We take those with such lower grades and give them the skill set,” says Nabaala.

The college authorities hope the institution will be at the heart of issues affecting local community members, especially those who come from nearby conservancies. Practicing sustainable wildlife conservation and pastoralism requires locals to limit forms of land use that are not compatible with conservation.

“The issue of conservation ethics is very strong here. When students graduate from this college, they have strong and positive conservation ethos. The courses engage the youth of the Mara in issues of climate change. The environmental course discusses pollution, renewable energy, and carbon assessment,” says Nabaala.

He says the school will also take centre stage in research and disseminating information generated by such research and help conservancies make long-term conservation decisions. To this end, there is representation from conservancies, local wildlife associations, the community, and big tourism partners on the board.

And while the school runs mainly on donor funds, it also generates funds from researchers intending to use the facility for meetings and conferences thereby making the college a self-sustaining venture.

The students are also supported in terms of fees, with close to 80 per cent paid for through sponsorships or scholarships by different stakeholders and partners.

“Life will change for us and future generations,” says Diana Mitau, a food and beverage student who comes from a family of seven in Aitong and who faced pressure to get married as a teenager. “Our elders can no longer predict when the rains will come. Now we will give them real scientific data learnt from this place. Our land has a future.”