Hi! We're memwi.
Wondering what we're all about?
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Our organisation
We’re the Moita Enaboishu Maa Women Initiative (or memwi for short), a nonprofit operating in south east Africa to provide education training, health services, and enterprise training for the local communities in Tanzania. We were founded in 2018, and registered in 2020 under the leadership of Neiyoneema Keloy Mouel.
At the core of our organisation lie three key values: equality, freedom, and education; We work tirelessly with the local communities to lead the conversation around each of these points, and we’re empowering the Maasai community economically and socially through improved access to educational health services, enterprise development, and promotion of human and cultural rights.
Our mission
Typically, Maasai girls are circumcised between the ages of eight to 13, and soon afterwards they’re married to a man chosen by their father, exchanged for cattle and cash. A typical Maasai woman will spend her days walking miles for water, and carrying heavy loads of fire wood. Dependent on a husband and a family they didn’t choose, the life expectancy for women in Moita is just 45 years.
We’re changing things for the better.
Memwi aims to embolden young women who complete primary school education to know and realize the importance to educate themselves in our global world. We’re tackling child marriage, getting more children into education, and educating against discrimination to create a better community for everyone.
We’re addressing the root causes of cultural challenges by working with community leaders to gain recognition and support for women's education and development, allowing sceptical members to see what their wives can access and be more open.
Our work
Education funding
The reality for Women in these communities is a struggle for water, food, medical help, transportation and means of communication. In addition to restrictions placed on them by NCA, Maasai cultural practices marginalize Women, limiting their opportunities for education, their ability to make community decisions and suppressing their rights. Maasai Women have been traditionally excluded from education and of those girls who do attend primary school, the number who go on to attend secondary school drops significantly. We’re making a positive difference by enabling girls to break out of the cultural cycle that deliberately excludes them from school by providing the funding so many desperately need in order to have a meaningful education.
We believe that through education, we can enable women throughout the community to better understand their right, their bodies, and to be able to stand up for themselves.
Health services
Many women are just one of many wives in a marriage and will be expected to have children regardless of their health or ability to provide for them - mothers struggle to provide for each of their children, let alone afford to educate themselves or their children. Often, children are sold at a young age in arranged marriages, in exchange for cattle.
Memwi are providing contraception & menstrual protection for women to use, which can help them regulate the amount of children that they have.
Economic development
Many of the women in the Maasia community are dependant on their husbands or fathers income, however they can gain an income of their own by starting a buissness. Most Maasia women carry the traditonal knowlage of jewlery making, so we at MEMWI - with the help of donations - provide women with small kickstart funds to buy the nessesairy materials to make the jewlery for sale.
Enterprise training
We also support and encourage them in this by running job skills training and empowerment sessions with the women and older teans who are considering what to do or who need supplemental income. Whithout donations however, we don't have the funds to buy learning and teaching recorses that these women can't afford themselfs.