The Maasai Child Brides
The Maasai Child Brides
This remarkable project aims to empower and equip a community of Maasai girls and women, all living in abject poverty in a settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi, with most becoming child brides and mothers in their early teens. No education, no livelihood, no voice.
A community of Maasai has settled next to the Langata Forest on the outskirts of the sprawling slums of Nairobi, quite close to Kids Alive’s Nairobi Slums Hope Centre. Climate change, urbanisation, and changes in land laws have led them to all but give up on their nomadic cattle-grazing lifestyle.
Viewed as property within the tribal hierarchy, it is commonplace for a girl to be married at 13 and become a mother at 14, with her husband typically 30 years her senior. Around 92% of Maasai women have no formal education and no viable workplace skills, so they are completely dependent on their spouses, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and abandonment.
Working alongside four amazing volunteers called ‘The Lily of Hope’, we aim to empower and equip these girls and women, giving them a greater voice and say in their lives.
If they can read, write, and earn a basic living they will become more independent, which will make it a lot easier to say no to abuses in their community. Likewise, our team and Lily of Hope train and educate the community in better care for their children and women - including the men.
Not to mention, provide trauma care and therapy, as so many have suffered trauma.
Please sign our petition to stop child marriage amongst the Maasai communities in Nairobi
Our team in Kenya have aksed if we can get at least 1,000 signatures by the end of January, which they will take to the authorities and insist on IMMEDIATE change.
Here are some photos and insights following our visit to the community in September 2025
The sheer scale of poverty and living conditions are hard to take in.
The Maasai used to be successful nomadic livestock farmers, but climate change and loss of land rights has forced them to settle in a slum-like location quite close to Nairobi’s vast slum network.
Many of the mums we met were younger than 16, with toddlers in their arms who were at least 1 or 2 years old.
A key part of the project is to provide basic literacy and maths skills to both the young brides and the women as a whole.
The women firmly believe that earning a living and having a livelihood is key to them being empowered and having a voice, and therefore ending child marriage.
Encouragingly, the menfolk and male elders are keen to support the project with five of them attending our inaugural community gathering.
Our amazing four volunteers (right) – Hawa, Janet, Lilian and Madahanna - have a huge heart to serve this community.
Our team from the Nairobi Hope Centre Project are supporting them in a variety of ways.
The girls and women are incredibly friendly and so passionate about improving their lot, with an incredible hunger to catch up on their education.
The project comprises five key strands.
- “She is Rising” Teenage Mum Programme provides "restorative education", life skills and trauma interventions for teenage mums, as well as covering women’s rights and women’s health matters.
- Whole-community education. We put on sessions to educate the whole community about women’s rights, basic sanitation and women’s health. We are encouraged that some menfolk have started coming along!
- Livelihood support. We provide vocational skills training in activities like soap-making, beadwork and petroleum jelly production.
- Trauma awareness, therapy and training.
- Advocating to the authorities to better protect these girls.
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." Proverbs 31: 8
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