We can depend on each other

‘Nemak’ is an association which represents the 25 women’s groups of Endulen Ward. Most groups have five members, and each group chooses a representative to attend Nemak.

Groups carry out a wide range of trading activities, buying and selling sugar, goats, and sheep, cattle, honey, cooking oil, beadwork and other items. Oxfam made the first loans to help support the women’s business activities in 2002.

Because the repayments of the first phase loans were good, a further round of loans totalling about £9,000 was provided in 2003/04. Nemak has to take responsibility for managing the loans, so members took part in a book-keeping and management course. Oxfam plans to extend the training of the associations, and to support their official registration as savings and credit co-operatives.

Noolosho Nakuta attends Nemak to represent her group, Eramatare – which means ‘Looking after people and livestock’. The group has five members, and took its first loan of about £50 from Oxfam in 2002, which they repaid in September the following year.

The women make and sell jewellery – threading plastic beads onto wires shaped as bracelets, collars, and ear-decorations. Beadwork is part of the everyday dress of Maasai women, not held back for special days or celebrations.

The jewellery styles are always evolving. The older women wear bead bands round the top of their heads, but among the younger women these have been elongated into a coned shape. Most wear collars of varying size, and elaborate loops of beads and dangling aluminium decorations hung from their ears and across their necks. The dominant colour is white, which represents peace, decorated with motifs in red, blue, and green.

“We use the money as a group,” Noolosho explained. “We don’t divide it among our five members. We buy beads, leather, and wire to make beadwork. We make esos (collar necklaces), alkataar (bracelets) and isayen elukunya (head-dresses). We sell our work to other local Maasai people. We buy the beads for 4,000 Shillings and sell the jewellery from it for 7,000. With the profit we have begun to buy more cows – altogether we’ve bought 20.”

“But apart from the profits, working as a group has had very big advantages for us” - Noolosho is emphatic about this: “Kabisa, kabisa, kubwa sana. [We boost each other. We can depend on each other].” During this drought we have sat as a group, to see how we can buy food for our families. We buy food together, and share it. I am a totally different woman than I was before. I look at things positively, and I take action with other women in the groups. Now we know what is going on.

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