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Last year The Leakey Collection began an annual Breast Cancer drive during the month of October and last year’s earnings funded the start up of our “Women’s Health Initiative” for the Maasai women in Kenya. We invited 12 women, 6 elder and 6 young, to kick off our classes. The elder women came to teach us their current practices and the younger to learn from us and help blend the two areas of expertise, traditional medical practices and with contemporary medical practices. The women selected the representatives among a group of several hundred who will then teach others across an expanse of approximately one hundred miles.

Our expert health instructor was Channa Commanday who generously volunteered to teach the first of many classes in the bush, hours away from the bustling hospital in

The class was a resounding success. The women, Channa and other medical experts are lined up to work with the Maasai women in our ongoing Women’s Health Initiative, which will continue to be reported on our blog.

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One of the best moments of the first class was when Channa was struggling with a translation from English into Ki-Maa, the Maasai dialect. Speaking only Ki-Maa, the 16 students waited patiently while Channa searched for the Ki-Swahili words to tell the interpreter, the bright young and well educated Mr. Tingisha. “Dudu, kidogo sana, SANA”, Channa repeated, gesturing with her thumb and forefinger pinched tightly together, meaning; insect, very, very small insect. Out of desperation she switches to English, “so small that you need a microscope to see it. Do you know what a micro-scope is”? She says to Tingisha. “Yes,” the gracious young man politely nods.

“Oh, good”, sighed in relief that she can forge ahead in English. “Okay, I want to explain germ theory, and I am looking for the words to tell the women about very, very small germs, so small that you can’t see them with the naked eye. Can you explain that to them?” she asks.

Expectantly the women wait, Tingisha studies the students, studies Channa, and coolly asks, “Do you mean micro-organisms?”

I nearly fell out of my chair with laughter. “Channa, first lesson of the day, don’t under estimate your audience.” I said, gathering myself back onto the wooden bench.

Thank you to all our stores and all the women around the world who have purchased our Breast Cancer Multi-strand necklace and bracelet set, Kupona – “to heal.” Look for our announcement this September of the

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Profiles

Every few weeks we profile a woman to give you a better understanding of and personal connection to the amazing women here in Kenya.

Kanampa ene Rincho is 42 years old, widowed and has 5 children, 2 boys and 3 girls. She says she has received no formal education but is a good bead worker and good at constructing traditional houses.

Kanampa describes and average day when she does not go to work. “I wake up at 6:00 in the morning, prepare breakfast, and prepare the children for school. Milk the animals and then open the gates so that the animals can move to their grazing areas. I come back home and prepare lunch. Go to the river and clean the clothes, go back home to feed the children after school. I take a little rest and goes to collect firewood. In the evening I prepare tea, milk the animals, prepare supper and feed the children”. Kanampa goes to sleep at 10:00 pm.

Kanampa says that her favorite ceremony is Christmas because, “everybody has a party at his home and I enjoy moving to different homes”.

Her best friends she says are her children because they are with her all the time and that what she wishes she could change about the Maasai culture is to stop keeping so many animals, she thinks, “people should do mixed farming.”

Kanampa’s hope for her children is to get a good education and good employment. The lesson she learned from her mother is to take care of the family and from her father she learned, “to take care of animals because they are ready food.”

The Leakey Collection

The Leakey Collection is a sales and marketing company that promotes the Opportunity of Work for the Maasai Women in Kenya. TLC sells Fashion Accessories, Home Interior Accessories and Gifts that are hand made by the women of Kenya. The company has worked in conjunction with the women to structure the company to fit their lifestyle both culturally and economically.

In addition to our Work Opportunity our company invests 5% of the Gross back into the communities in which we work through the following ways:

· Aiding education by helping to build schools, start libraries, donating financial aid to students and paying teacher’s salaries.

· Bringing medical classes to the rural women which teach; illness prevention, diagnostic skills, maternity and midwife training, hygiene and the administering of non-hospital treatments.

· Aiding rural business opportunities by building access roads, bringing communication to rural areas through providing mobile phones for small businesses, providing small business counseling and advancing small business loans.

Company News

The Leakey Collection is fortunate to be working with Wharton MBA students on a project to help expand the work we are doing in Kenya. They had a very exciting visit this January as they arrived during the unrest that took place after the Kenyan presidential election. The teams of students handled the unexpected circumstances with aplomb. In May they presented their recommendations to TLC which were directed to helping the company to grow. A very educational exercise and look forward to implementing the changes so we can better serve our customers and the Maasai women in Kenya.