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Have you ever asked yourself: what would your life look like if you were a Maasai woman?
What are the challenges that you’d face? How will you spend each day? Will you achieve your
dreams? What about your speech; can you speak up about any topic?
In order to answer all these questions, on the 14 th of June we visited a Maasai village in Hai
District (Kilimanjaro region). The women and kids were doing their usual routine: the women
were doing some chores while the kids were playing around. Their faces brightened up as soon
as they saw us. We asked them to gather around so we could ask them some questions.
The first question our volunteer asked was: “As Maasai women, what are your struggles?”
After a moment of silence, one of the women spoke up on the behalf of everyone, saying that
they would love to have income generating activities. Nevertheless they are unable to have jobs
and take care of their families. As we expected, the reason was poverty. Maasai women live in
poverty which strips them of education and paralyzes their ability to have their own cultural
beadwork businesses.
Dynamic Community Impact Organization will try to raise money to help women and their
daughters have a better quality of life by manifesting their potential and creativity.
Our team also tackled the menstrual hygiene topic by discussing hygiene methods and access to
sanitary pads. The women were surprisingly shy to participate. They were avoiding eye-contact
as much as possible, which reflects the taboo and shame surrounding menstruation. However,
there was a woman who was confident enough to speak up. She stressed that family members
don’t usually talk about menstruation because it’s considered inappropriate. She added that
when it comes to sanitary pads, they have limited access to them. Women don’t have the
luxury to use sanitary pads for every cycle; some cycles their only choice is to use napkins or
piece of clothes.
Therefore, Dynamic Community Impact Organization had already embarked on the journey of
‘the sanitary pads donation boxes’. We are proud to have donation boxes in supermarkets. In addition, we have other fundraising activities to help us distribute pads to girls in schools and villages.
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