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| Mary Walker and Tasaru girls |
Peace & Light
A Better Life for Maasai Girls
Genital mutilation and forced childhood marriage are a routine part of growing up female among the Maasai people in Kenya. The Tasaru Girls Rescue Center, in the town of Narok, offers a sanctuary from that way of life. Some fifty students—Maasai girls who have fled there to avoid being cut or married off—live together as a family and are educated through secondary school. But their chances of succeeding on their own are much greater if they can go on to college or vocational training, according to Mary Walker, J83. Walker manages the Tasaru Scholarship Fund, established in 2008 by Global Relief Resources, a nonprofit, to pay for Tasaru girls’ postsecondary education. Several girls now attend teachers’ colleges and many more have obtained computer certification. “By returning to their communities as teachers, nurses, or in other useful professions,” she says, “these young women will break the economic cycle that perpetuates female genital mutilation and forced childhood marriages in their culture.” For more information on the Tasaru Scholarship Fund, contact Walker directly (mewalker99@yahoo.com). |
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