Rejuvenate Terrat Dairy & Empower Maasai Women

Aim

To help empower women in the Maasai plains of Tanzania, this project seeks to revitalise the existing dairy and transform the community.

We are the Smart Villages Foundation, a UK-based international development organisation working with off-grid rural communities predominantly in Eastern Africa. Our aim is to facilitate new and innovative approaches to development issues, using our community-centric approach and using technology as the catalyst for development impact. 

This project is conducted in partnership with the Tanzanian organisation Orkonerei Maasai Social Initiative (OMASI). Through this project, we aim to empower women in the Maasai plains of Tanzania.

Background information

A dairy was established as a social enterprise in Terat, Tanzania in 2009, paying women for the milk from their cattle and producing marketable products (yoghurt, cheese, ghee etc) out of it. The dairy has fallen into disuse, however, in recent times. This project seeks to revitalise it, to put money and power directly back into the hands of Maasai women, transforming their lives and status in their communities.

Issue outline
In Maasai culture, men own most of the family assets, and women depend on their husbands for money. One of the few exceptions is the milk from cattle - traditionally a woman's property! Given the climate, milk is of little value, unless it can be transformed into another product. For this reason, a dairy operating as a social enterprise was established, to allow women to sell their milk and earn money from it. The dairy has fallen into disrepair recently though, but could easily be revitalised.

The role of OMASI Dairy 

The team that ran the dairy still live locally, and retain the skills of making cheese and other dairy products, and selling these. However, the Dairy requires some repairs to be carried out, and some support with working capital and costs to start up once more. This project aims to collect the funds necessary for this to happen, to allow us to support the local team to get the dairy up and running again, to be able to provide this vital market for their milk to women in the Maasai community.

Potential impact

The dairy will run as a social enterprise, focused on financial sustainability and capacity building for women in the Maasai community. Our business model for it is fully sustainable, once start-up costs and essential repairs are addressed. The long term impact for 2000 Maasai women who could supply the milk is that they become the family members with cash in their pockets, and therefore command more respect in their families and communities, and have more say family spending, eg on education.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 16th March 2022