Natural Resources Management

Success Story

A Star is Born Under the Koija Starbeds: Koija Women's Group

The Koija Wilderness is located just outside the town of Nanyuki, 250 km north of Nairobi. If one follows any one of its winding dirt roads deep into the bush, one will discover that the Koija Wilderness is home to several Maasai clans and a variety of plant and animal wildlife. Maintaining harmony among humans and the wildlife has always been one of USAID Office of Natural Resource Management’s ultimate goals. In 2000, USAID had found the Maasai people of the Koija group ranch, established in 1976, dislocated by large private ranch owners and stranded on land that had become condensed, parched and infertile. Teamed with its partners AWF and Pact Inc. and with help the tourism company Oryx Ltd, USAID assisted the Maasai in rejuvenating their land and organizing and managing their community under new, innovative sources of livelihood, such as a type of lodging known as the “Starbed.” Starbeds are low-impact, cost efficient structures emulating a tree house. The Koija Starbed lodge has brought direct success to the Koija community group ranch that USAID worked with.

The Starbed lodge has also brought success to an unexpected party. It presented an opportunity for women from various Maasai clans to coalesce and form the Koija Women’s Group. Started in 2000, the group consists of ninety women who skillfully make beaded arts and crafts to market to tourists who lodge at the Starbeds and visit the nearby Maasai communities. Sometimes, the women also receive orders from neighboring lodges. Throughout their 5 years of enterprising experience, the Koija Women’s Group has found their customers are satisfied with all their products, but have successfully served specific requests too. “Sometimes, we get orders worth 60,000 shillings (US$790),” the Koija Women’s Group chairperson revealed. Depending on the day, the group will generally make anywhere from three hundred to a thousand shillings. The highest an individual would get is 2,000 shillings (US$26) in one day!

Before the creation of the Koija Women Group, the communities relied on livestock, mainly cows, for livelihood. The women revealed, however, that most of their cattle had been wiped out by disease. Now, they depend on goats and the revenue from the group as means of living. With the sale proceeds from the bead enterprise, the group has supplemented their source of livelihood significantly.

But, the Koija Women Group is truly a source of education for the Maasai communities. With the inauguration, the community has been able to take advantage of Kenya’s free primary school education system instead of leaving the children, especially the girls, to fulfill their traditional role of herding livestock. Moreover, the increased income has given the women the opportunity to send their children to secondary school. When asked “how many women have children in secondary school,” four women raised their hands. The women all concurred that the Koija Women Group has had a positive impact on their respected community.

One of USAID’s concerns was the reaction of the Maasai men. Sometimes traditional gender roles, like a woman’s duty to care for the livestock, smother her economic opportunities and/or stir tension within the community. In the case of the Koija Women Group, however, the men are very happy and grateful for the success of their beadwork enterprise. They have even assumed some of the traditional familial roles of the women.

We also inquired about their sentiments towards tourism. The women shared that they are generally pleased with tourism because it’s their market. Additionally, the tourists have to pay an entrance fee for the conservation area which goes directly to the Maasai communities. The only issue they mentioned was that the tourists sometimes come to just take pictures of them and not to buy any products. The women think this issue would be resolved if the tourists were informed at the entrance gates how much impact their business has on the community and request that they buy at least one or two products.

The End.

<<Back to list of success stories>>