How unique school is changing the livelihoods of Maasai youth

On the slopes of a steep escarpment in Maasai Mara’s Pardamat Conservancy, Narok County, about 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 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. 

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Studies consist of five key programmes 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, other courses run for a year.

The school is registered with the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TVETA) with programs under the Kenya Institute of Curricular Development (KICD), with some exams administered by the 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 her studies. “When a Maasai girl gets educated, she becomes a role model in society.”

Ken Yenko from Olderikesi worked as a room steward in a safari camp shortly after completing his secondary school education in Mulot. “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 PowerPoint presentations and send photos to my friends. We will change Maasailand with this 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 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.

Moriaso Nabaala, a conservation biologist and the principal at WTC has been with the college since Koiyaki’s inception. 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 enrol, something their parents never had the opportunity to do.