In Kajiado West, a semi-arid region of Kenya where erratic rains, drought, and decades of marginalisation intersect, Maasai pastoralist communities are charting their own path to resilience. Their response is neither driven by aid agencies nor imposed through top-down policies. Instead, it grows from within: solidarity groups, agroecology, and communal governance are turning crisis into opportunity and survival into strength. What emerges here is a web of resilience – interwoven with ancestral knowledge, gendered leadership, ecological practices, and political determination. It is a living resistance to exclusion and a reimagining of what justice can look like from the drylands.
From solidarity to savings
The Shompole, Torosei and Oldony Nyokie areas, neighbouring the Kenyan Lake Magadi on the border with Tanzania, are inhabited for 99% by the Maasai. After a community needs assessment carried out in 2017, the first solidarity groups began forming. Women – who, as the assessment revealed, have long shouldered the burdens of food insecurity, climate change and household survival, but also hold a strong tradition of collective labour – led the way.
The savings groups have grown into local banks, crisis safety nets, and engines of empowerment
The groups were formed on a foundation of traditional values inherent in the Maasai communities: respect, honesty, mutual aid, community, solidarity and the African notion of ‘I am because you are’. Their early efforts focused on pooled savings, joint farming, and mutual support. These small groups evolved into a network of 87 by 2024, with women comprising over 85% of membership.
Each group crafted by-laws to govern savings, loans, and conduct. Leadership rotates regularly. Weekly meetings are held in rotating manyattas (compounds), where members learn about agroecology, financial literacy, recordkeeping, and conflict resolution. One group in Makatai settled a loan default through traditional mediation, allowing repayment after the next sale of livestock instead of imposing punitive measures. These practices have reinforced trust and elevated women’s visibility in public leadership – many speaking out for the first time in community gatherings.
Agroecology as resistance
In the arid landscapes of Torosei and Shompole in the Great Rift Valley, agroecology has become both a livelihood strategy and a cultural revival for Maasai. Following the assessment in 2016 where the women said they wanted to diversify their diets, the pastoralist community selected people among them who were trained as community animators. They in turn trained women in the community on how to establish kitchen (home) gardens. Kitchen gardens now flourish beside livestock corrals. Women cultivate vegetables using greywater and compost from livestock enclosures.
Communal cooking sessions were introduced to promote nutritional diversity using both traditional meals of meat, milk and new crops. One woman from Olkarar shared how her family, previously reliant on relief food, now eats vegetables grown just steps from their home. And this is the story of many families.
In addition, grazing committees and community scouts were established to coordinate rotational herding to prevent land degradation and ensure grass regeneration even with failing rainy seasons. Youths, including morans (young warriors) and community scouts, were trained by elders and technical experts to map grazing zones and monitor ecological boundaries. In overgrazed areas, communities planted drought-resistant grasses and established local seed banks.
Agroecology here is not a technical package. It is a form of care – for the land, for culture, and for each other.
Mediating the politics of water
Water remains a daily challenge, as impacts of climate change are felt across the three communities in Shompole, Torosei and Oldony Nyokie. But even here, communities are reclaiming power. After negotiations led by community land committees and the indigenous group Dupoto-e-Maa (Olkejuado Pastoralists Development Organization), the Tata Chemicals Magadi company, Africa’s leading miningcompany for soda ash (which has various industrial applications, including glassmaking, detergents, and paper products). , supported the improvement of key water points, including reparations and continuous management of the water pipeline, and water supply to schools and remote villages.
What was once a source of conflict has become a point of collaboration, demonstrating how grassroots diplomacy can shift corporate-community dynamics.
Grassroots governance: a new social architecture
Small weekly contributions in the solidarity savings groups—sometimes as little as 20 Kenyan shillings (around USD 0,12) – have accumulated into life-changing capital. By 2023, some groups had saved over Ksh 700,000 (USD 5,400). Members use the rotating loans for school fees, medical care, and livestock feed during droughts. In Enchuti, a widow used a group loan to treat her son’s malaria, repaying the amount later from milk sales. In Kona Maziwa, groups now lend at 5% interest – far below exploitative market rates.
These groups have grown into local banks, crisis safety nets, and engines of empowerment. Publicly reviewed ledgers, elected treasurers, and collective dispute resolution have built institutional trust.
Response to shocks wasn’t outsourced - it was local, coordinated, and grounded in mutual aid
Beyond economics, the solidarity groups, later followed by community land committees, peace committees, grazing committees and community forums (all set up in the response to the 2016 needs assessment) have transformed local governance. Community-elected peace committees trained in conflict resolution, land rights, and participatory planning now mediate disputes that once overwhelmed courts.
Community Land Committees were set up to comply with the Community Land Act of 2016, which aims to secure community land rights, including those of women, by recognising customary land rights and establishing community land management structures. The community land committees are elected by the community. They are trained by Dupoto-e-Maa on conflict analysis, peace negotiations, conflict resolution strategies, community benefit sharing and mediation.
Gender representation is no longer an afterthought. In Shompole, the land committee now includes three women out of 15 members – a milestone in a context where land decisions were historically reserved for men. Awareness raising, dialogue and training were crucial in fostering this cultural and political change.
And they stand their ground. In October and November 2024, women staged protests and closed the road to Tata Chemicals, after which they met with the company’s Board to negotiate access to jobs of qualified Maasai local community graduates. In Oldoinyo-nyokie, a contentious land subdivision was paused after community protests. Residents, through the group ranch committee, demanded revisions and held open forums until consensus was reached.
Managing commons and investing in futures
Shompole’s community-managed conservancy generates over USD 250,000 annually through eco-tourism and other sources. Following capacity-building sessions, the community land committee now convenes annual general meetings to decide on the use of these resources. Investments are made in teacher salaries, community scouts, bursaries for students, and school feeding programs. The latter, in particular, have increased school attendance and retention, especially among girls who are often pulled out during dry seasons. Education is now viewed not as a luxury but as a right – and a community responsibility.
The land committees of Shompole, Torosei, and Oldoinyo-nyokie have also secured funding in community benefit-sharing agreements over mining concessional areas. Each community received USD 178,000 from Tata Chemicals Magadi for local community development, reinforcing the principle that resources must serve people – not exploit them.
When crisis hits, communities are resilient
No system is immune to shocks. In Torosei, a disputed court-led land subdivision in 2016 triggered violence when group ranches were directed by the government to transition into community land management schemes. Several people were hospitalised. And there were other instances of shocks., flooding wiped out seedbeds in Pakase and Senta. In Oldoinyo-nyokie, bureaucratic delays in boundary mapping heightened tensions. Wildlife raids destroyed vegetables in multiple villages.
But the resilience web held.
Peace committees stepped in to mediate. Solidarity groups offered emergency loans. Community scouts organised patrols to deter elephants. With support from organisations such as Dupoto-e-Maa and Fastenaktion, communities replanted seedbeds and restored lost gardens. The response wasn’t outsourced – it was local, coordinated, and grounded in mutual aid.
This grassroots model for resilience is deeply intergenerational. Elders pass on ecological knowledge, morans and youth lead patrols, women steward finances, and children are kept in school. Each actor plays a role in strengthening the fabric of resilience.
Resilience is where women lead, youth organise, Elders advise, and communities govern
And it is intersectoral. Agroecology, education, health, land rights, and governance are addressed holistically – not in silos. As the experience above shows, Dupoto-e-Maa, as a trusted local partner founded by Maasai themselves, has played a crucial role in accompaniment – not as a provider of solutions, but as a facilitator of community-led transformation. Dupoto-e-Maa assembles elders, women leaders and morans. Occasionally, it brings on board professionals with a certain expertise to dialogue with the communities.
This approach defies the development industry’s tendency to isolate sectors and fund short-term projects. Instead, it offers a living example of systemic transformation rooted in solidarity.
A radical redefinition of resilience
Mainstream interpretations of resilience often emphasise “bouncing back.” But for communities like those in Kajiado West, bouncing back to the status quo is neither desirable nor just. That notion was built on inequality, exclusion, and ecological collapse.
Here, resilience means refusing to return to that unjust past. It is about creating new norms – where women lead, youth organise, elders advise, and communities govern. Where ecological health is a shared responsibility, and financial autonomy begins with 20 shillings a week.
This is a radical, collective, and political understanding of resilience.
What began with 17 solidarity groups has grown into a mosaic of governance, ecology, and empowerment across 30 villages – from Empaash and Nolesenja to Oloosaen and Oloiri. This is not an imported model. It is a homegrown resistance to systemic injustice and an invitation to rethink how resilience is built.
This deeply rooted model of collective governance and ecological stewardship is a natural outgrowth of Maasai values and social norms, which prioritise communal ownership, mutual responsibility, and respect for elders and land. The age-set system, the centrality of cattle, and the importance of oral negotiation have long reinforced a culture where decisions are made collectively and social cohesion is paramount. In a landscape defined by scarcity – of water, pasture, and state services – solidarity is not optional; it is survival.
The people of Kajiado West remind us that real transformation doesn’t come from boardrooms or manuals – it is grown in drylands, sung in traditional songs, negotiated in manyattas, and defended by collective will. They do not merely survive – they design, adapt, and lead.
Their message is clear: resilience is not about bouncing back. It’s about moving forward – together.
Author: Stellamaris Mulaeh is a development practitioner with over two decades of experience working alongside grassroots movements and community-led initiatives in East Africa. She is the founder and chief operating officer of Act for Change Trust and serves as country programme coordinator at Fastenaktion. She is a recipient of the 2025 Trailblazer Award for Climate Action and the Women on Boards Network (WOBN) Individual Empowering Grassroots Women Award. Contact: mulaeh@fastenaktion.org
Download pdf (slightly shortened version)
This article is part of Issue 3-2025: Weaving Resilience and Resistance
