Under a tree, on top of a hill that over looks the Daraja Academy campus, a few members of the school’s administrative team met with a group of elders from the local community… 70 elders from the local community!

The meeting began with a traditional Maasai prayer as the clouds burned away from Mt. Kenya to the southeast. In customary call and response style, the local holy man chanted a sentence or two in rumbling, deep KiMaasai, to which the entire group answered, “Ngai” (God).

Mzee[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=As far as “community meetings” go, this one broke the mold. Absent were griping neighbors and unresolved issues, this gathering had one agenda married to a common goal: assisting Daraja Academy’s mission to educate Kenya’s young women. Some of the group had daughters or granddaughters who attend Daraja, many were interested in learning how their girls could join the school. But everyone wanted to see the school succeed.

People spoke about the differences they had seen in the village girls who attend the school. A stooped, white haired gentleman stood and addressed the group insisting that “Daraja should be left out of peoples mouths” when it came to political disagreements, specifically those concerning land rights. “Daraja is not with a Kenyan political party, it is with Kenya.”

While I’m in the US the most common question that people ask about Daraja is if we receive push back from the local community because we are educating girls. Currently, the only issue that the local community has with Daraja Academy is that we are too small and cannot educate enough girls!

There are 70+ Maasai and Turkana elders who understand the value of educating girls, who are willing to gather, discuss and plan ways to educate more – now, it is time for the rest of the world to follow their lead.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]