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Meet the Board
Meet the Board
MARA CONSERVATION
encouraging empathy for other life
MLP Team in Morocco
Advisors in Morocco
What We Do & Where
Our Mission: To build a positive and sustainable future by empowering the next generation with literacy and knowledge; creating meaningful livelihoods for women; developing clean water; and nurturing environmental stewardship
We see all of these goals as equally necessary for a sustainable future for people and the planet. We have a holistic program in the Maasai Mara of Kenya that hits all of these goals, along with a legacy English literacy program for youth in rural Morocco. We make tremendous impact with efficient use of resources, as we are part of these communities and have deep, long-standing relationships. We also believe that these communities have a broad influence, creating a positive wave effect well beyond their borders.
Maasai Mara, Kenya
The Maasai Mara is an extraordinary place, where pastoral communities have been co-existing with wildlife for millennia. In the words of one of our colleagues, "The wildlife is here because of the people." Their way of life also preserves the native grasslands, a vital carbon sink and buffer against climate change. The Maasai are guardians. And yet, life is hard here for people, and there are a great many disadvantages in education, health, and the most basic livelihoods. Our aim is to uplift communities in the Mara while honoring what is truly amazing about their culture, heritage, and way of life in harmony with the natural surroundings.
In education, the Maasai Mara is one of the most disadvantaged regions of East Africa. Only 11% of young people enroll in secondary school, and the area has the highest dropout rate and teen pregnancy rate in Kenya. Quite often families can't afford to send their children to school, and when this happens girls are usually the ones to drop out. The girls then may be forced into early marriage, and many in the area still go through FGM if they leave school. To us, education is #1.
We transform the poorest public schools in the Mara, both primary and secondary, by setting up quality resources including libraries and science labs and providing literacy and writing opportunities. We also help teen girls stay in school through scholarships and by distributing sanitary kits. Rather than create new schools, we have found that outfitting the most needy public schools with meaningful resources changes this trajectory for the greatest number of youth.
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Our holistic approach in the Maasai Mara also addresses women. Most women here lack literacy and marketable skills, as they did not have opportunities for education when they were young. And yet, they hold their families together through the hard work of domestic life. We run a co-operative Women's Work Center as a platform for sustainable income-generating work for women through beadwork, sewing, vocational training, and delivery of their family's milk by electric motorcycle. When women make an income, they use it to uplift their families — a truth no matter where you are in this world. Day after day, we witness joy and confidence blossom in these women as they earn an income for the first time in their lives. We also address family health challenges through access to clean water.
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Environmentalism is a core value of ours, and we incorporate it into everything we do. Our libraries include environmental learning materials, and we support tree planting and use solar energy in all our development projects. In turn, we believe that the Maasai community has much to teach the rest of the world on living in balance with nature and with other life on earth. We aim to help them do it.
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Rural Morocco
Morocco Library Project (MLP) was launched by our founder in 2014, and that was the beginnning of Oliveseed. From the start, the principles of MLP have been to ignite literacy and love of learning in rural Amazigh communities in close collaboration with highly motivated Moroccan teachers and youth. When MLP started here, these communities and schools, particularly in the deserts of the south and southeast, had so little in the way of learning resources. The MLP libraries are in English, which is what the communities asked for, and they continue to help teachers with extra-curricular activities for young people anxious to master another language and expand their global perspective. Inspired by the drive and energy of these English learners, our continuing goal is for young Moroccans to have the literacy, confidence, and opportunities to become positive changemakers in our dynamic world.
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Morocco sits at the cross-roads between East and West, and as such it embodies potential for great positive influence in our world. Through MLP, we are building a lasting bridge of friendship between the U.S. and North Africa, needed now more than ever.
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Today, after 10+ years of helping teachers nurture a culture of reading and expanding youth access to English and the wider world, our program in Morocco has evolved to a nationwide Short Story Competition for rural youth with published books and cultural preservation through indigenous stories. These are the first programs of their kind in Morocco.
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