By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
A landmark land victory in Kenya becomes a global lesson in evidence-based advocacy, intergenerational wisdom, and resistance with vision.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
A landmark land victory in Kenya becomes a global lesson in evidence-based advocacy, intergenerational wisdom, and resistance with vision.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
“Our Elders hunted lions to protect our herds. Today, we are hunting for something else, plastic. It doesn’t roar, but it’s killing our way of life.”
— Ipato Kenta, Founder of Tembea Make An Impact
By Laissa Malih, Coordinator/Filmmaker of Massai Cultural Heritage
The Maasai people, known for their rich cultural tapestry and deep-rooted traditions, face a significant challenge: the erosion of their heritage. To counter this, the Maasai Cultural Heritage (MCH) Foundation initiated the "Wisdom of the Maasai" project, known as "Engeno Le Maa" in the local dialect. Funded by Cultural Survival under the Community Media Fund, the initiative aimed to document and preserve the essence of Maasai culture through film and photography.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
In the southern Rift Valley of Kenya, beyond the steaming geothermal fields, fenced-off national parks, and margins of Lake Naivasha (Enaiposha), lies Narasha, a semi-arid landscape home to the Maasai people for generations. Today, this land is a battleground where Indigenous survival, spiritual identity, and environmental justice are being relentlessly contested.
By Peter Kitelo, Executive Director Chepkitale Indigenous People Development Project (CIPDP)
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
If cities had ghosts, Nairobi would be haunted by the whispers of those it displaced. Beneath its glass towers and frantic highways lies a past rarely acknowledged: a history of forced removals, treaties signed under duress, and land slipping through Maasai hands like water.
By Georges Dougnon (Dogon, CS Staff)
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
When Mona Omar (Somali/Maasai) was a child, the land still spoke. Elders could predict the rains by watching the sky, birds, and the flowering of certain trees. They knew when to move to better pastures, which rivers would swell, and how to prepare for the dry season. The land was alive until one day, it wasn’t.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
If you ever find yourself in a remote Samburu village at night, you might stumble upon a scene that feels straight out of a centuries-old tradition women huddled around a bonfire, their voices rising and falling in conversation as the fire flickers against their beadwork and shukas.
The Endorois Indigenous Women Empowerment Network is an Indigenous women-led, community-based organization founded in 2016, deeply committed to promoting self-determination, amplification of voice and status, and empowerment of marginalized women, persons with disabilities, youth, Endorois youth, and other Indigenous and marginalized communities in Kenya.
JAC 106.2 FM is a community radio station based in Kwale, Kenya, specifically targeting members of the Indigenous Mijikenda community.
By Xiting Tong (CS Intern)
Under the sprawling branches of ancient trees by Lake Bogoria, Elders and young people sat together. The Elders, whose faces bore the gentle lines of time, shared stories with the young generation. Their voices, though quiet, carried the weight of many years of Indigenous wisdom and experience. “I have come to learn that there are many Elders who have a lot of stories to tell, and we have to reach them through this project,” says Rodgers Kibet (Endorois), a youth from Mochongoi.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.