Established in the year 1999, MWEDO (Maasai Women Development Organization) is a registered organization founded by Ndinini Kimesera Sikar, Ms. Maria Kaheta and Ms. Josephine Gabriel. Through various programs, MWEDO seeks to support and empower Maasai women.  Currently, we are operational within four main districts of Monduli, Simanjiro, Longido and Kiteto. MWEDO works within four Maasai districts of Monduli, Longido, Simanjiro and Kiteto.  All of the districts fall within the Arusha and Manyara regions in northern Tanzania.  Each area is remote, making it difficult to access vital mainstream information and services.  A key activity of MWEDO is to give a “voice” to the Maasai women and access to critical services and information.

The work of Maasai Women Development Organization (MWEDO) has been significantly felt in the areas of education and women empowerment in general. Although the overall goal aims at improving the quality of life and status of disadvantaged women, MWEDO still has a long way to go in order to actually reach this goal. Women in the Maasai communities are yet to equally achieve their rights

Much have been achieved so far, and we are proud to look back and realise how much has been accomplished–242 Maasai girls have been sponsored; 550 new women learners have bee enrolled for adult literacy education, 9 new literacy classes added and 12 local based adult literacy facilitators have been employed. More categorically the dream for women handcraft market has come true through the establishment of the Maasai Women Fair Trade Centre in Arusha-The centre is central to the women producers associations but also buyers at local and international levels. It ensures quality of products, branding and marking on equal standards across production lines but also at the market place.

There has been immensely progresses made; started in the year 2005, the Education program continues to unfold within reasonable achievements. MWEDO is more encouraged to strengthen the education support; the performance progress of the supported students is fairly encouraging compared to the living situation and education background; however there is a need to have alternative strategy to improve performances of the supported students,

Much has been done to ensure supported girls continue with studies. There is improved retention rate among the supported students as influenced by strengthened participation between MWEDO, Parents, Teachers, Local authorities and the community. School-life expectancy is tremendously improving has reflected to the willingness of the community to support expenditures/spending for girls’ education. It is now common for parents to sell livestock to support girls’ education.

In other hand, the literacy education project systematically continues to strengthen business capacities among Maasai women learners. The learners are very happy and excited to learn how to count because they can now count their money after selling of their products; the husbands or customers can no longer cheat them.  They can now count their animals and know how many belong to them and they look forward to learning more Swahili and business skills so that they can negotiate with customers and increase their income.  With the establishment of the Maasai Women Fair Trade Centre it is our expectation that it shall tremendously stimulate economic growth, job creation and higher incomes amongst the Maasai women producer associations within the four districts.