1. The Maasai Warriors of Africa
By: Adam Jacobs, Ashley Solek, & Matt Toker

2. MAASAI WARRIOR BACKGROUND INFO
Ethnic Grouping: Plain / Eastern Nilotes
Location: The Rift Valley of Africa
Language: Native Maasai
Population: 377, 089
Social / Religious Customs: 75% Tradition.
25% Christian
Economic Activities: Nomadic Life, & Herding, Livestock

3. ORIGINAL SETTLEMENTS
For centuries, the Maasai Warriors and their tribe have been struggling over land. Although originally settled across Kenya and Tanzania, today, their lands have become more limited to exclusively Kenya.

4. Down In Africa
Kenya, an African country on the coast of the Indian Ocean, is now where over 90% of the current Maasai live

5. MORE MAASAI INFO
Of all African peoples, the Maasai are one of the best known to the western world. Since they share their territory with one of the greatest collections of wildlife on earth, they have close contact with visitors who go on safari in East Africa, and their distinctive dress, weapons and bead jewelry are familiar from magazines and travel brochures. They also have a reputation as brave fighters who kept the slave trade at bay and challenged early explorers. Yet today they are having to struggle to keep their identity and what remains of their land.

6. MAASAI HISTORY
The Maasai probably arrived in East Africa from the north (some say the Nile valley) some time in the 15th century A.D. Until the 19th century they dominated the grass plains that stretch from lake Victoria Nyanza east almost to the Indian ocean, and from the highlands north of Nairobi south to the Maasai steppe of Tanzania. But in the late 19th century cholera and diseases affecting their cattle nearly wiped them out, and the northern part of their land was taken over by European settlers through treaties with the British colonial administration.

7. CATTLE ‘Without the land and cattle, there will be no Maasai’
Tepilit ole Saitoti
The Maasai are above all cattle people; their herds are central to their lives. They also keep sheep and goats, and donkeys for transport. Milk is their everyday food, and in times when food is scarce they also draw blood to drink from the neck of a cow or an ox (a procedure from which the animal soon recovers). Cattle are killed for meat only on special occasions. Their old ideal was to live by their cattle alone, and to buy any other good they needed. However, today they also need to grow grain and other crops.

9. PROPOSAL

10. LIVESTOCK FARM INDUSTRY
Most of the area around the Maasai has changed with the times but they would like to keep their traditional ways. That is perfectly understandable. However, in very recent times many Maasai have wanted better education for their children.
Using herding as their only form of economy is not going to cut it. With the land they live on there is not many resources. However there are other things that can be used to start businesses. Two things that Kenya has an abundance of is land and cattle.

11. BUISNESS REP.
Due to such a poor national economy, Kenya has had to turn to the World Bank, and a program of economic liberalization and reform
Livestock trade is a world wide industry and would enable Kenya to finally have a currency which would actually be recognized and acknowledged by the industrialized world
With the money received, Kenya’s GNP would go up and it would also enable them to have the funds to give high salaries to the Maasai tribe who could be trained to run the livestock farms, and sell them to larger livestock trading industries to be distributed worldwide
This new source of income would enable the Maasai to buy more technologically advanced goods and farming equipment.

12. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL
The Maasai have a nice portion of this land for their travels. Setting up an industrialized live stock farming system, run by the Maasai tribe, could supply other local areas of Kenya with milk and meat
With the money received from this new industry, the government of Kenya would be able to finance up to date schools, with up to date teaching resources, for the people to send their children to
This new industry would allow the Maasai people, and other native tribes of Africa to keep their traditions, while still earning modern salaries to increase their education and standard of living.

13. ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATE
Many tribes in Kenya are nomadic, but setting up concrete and unwavering employment opportunities for these people would enable them to settle in one area. This would prevent them from their practice of using up one area’s agricultural resources and then moving on when they are dried up.
With the amount of cattle the Maasai people herd, and that graze all over Kenya, it would in no way endanger the survival of the animal.
There are countless acres of deserted land in Kenya, which could be used more efficiently to set up these livestock farms. Due to this abundance of open land, no environmental resource or natural inhabitant of the country side would be put into danger or destroyed.

14. VOTE TO GIVE THE MAASAI CHILDREN, THEIR TRIBE, & THE PEOPLE OF KENYA A BETTER EDUCATION AND TO FEED THE STARVING PEOPLE OF THEIR TRIBE!