Join us in changing ideas into social change. Our staff is on the front lines, alleviating poverty by empowering people to bring about change in their own lives. Maji Mazuri currently has 96 employees. You can support transformation by sponsoring a member of our Kenya staff.

o Auxiliary workers – care givers, cooks, farmer workers, cleaners for $125 per month

o Specialists – nurses, therapists, matrons, accountants, administrators for $200 per month

o Elementary school teachers – for $350 per  month

o High school teachers for $650 per month

o Program managers - $750 per  month

An intelligent, articulate champion for social justice, Naomi is a fearless warrior for the less fortunate. As a PhD researcher at the University of Amsterdam she focuses on ethnic violence in slum communities such as Mathare Valley, a shanty town on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.

Her journey into an unchartered realm began in 1989 when she met Dr. Wanjiku Kironyo, director of Maji Mazuri, and 6 youth from Mathare Valley, the second largest slum in East Africa. The group had been invited to participate in a conference on alternative didactic methodologies in the Netherlands. As part of their contribution to the conference the youth did a drama about their lives dealing with trauma's in the slums, a desolate and debilitating place. In a place murred with crime, prostitution and exploitation, the youth live on the constant brink of danger. The absolute extremes and the rawness that characterise Mathare are overwhelming, stigmatizing even cripling to the residents.

Naomi and her twin brother, Saul, spent lots of time with the youth while they were in Holland, showing them around and introducing them to the Dutch culture. The next year, 1990, she and Saul visited their new friends in Kenya. This was the start of a friendship and working relationship that now already has been going on for years.

Her experience working with Maji Mazuri Center and the youth in Mathare Valley changed her life, turning her from a rebillious difficult teen into a transformational leader.  Today she is a teacher, anthropologist and researcher with a passion for youth empowerment. She has been working with troubled teens in Mathare for the last 20 years and visited Kenya more than 16 times. She is committed to finding solutions for a stigmatized population and shares her strength with tremendous compassion and passion.

She is the founder of Duara Foundation (www.duara.org), an international partner to Maji Mazuri’s Education and Talent Program that currently guides 550 youth to a better future. Duara proposes a more dynamic and reciprocal form of international development cooperation and through this it hopes to contribute to a more equal world.  Naomi and her board members raised over $226 000 in less than a year towards a new community center in the heart of Mathare valley. The center will include a library, internet cafe, academic institution including a head start program for toddlers and clinic. For a child in Mathare valley, access to these  type of resources is transformational. She is devoted to supporting bottom-up, local community projects, believing people themselves are able to determine their own route to socio-economic empowerment but sometimes lack the means to do so.

Naomi overcame a debilitating shyness, channeling her initial challenges with leadership into service and the strength to confront social injustice. Her personal story demonstrates that fortitude is built from ferver and heartfelt passion. She has had the tenacity to push through hardship and formidable obstacles, pushing tirelessly to make quality of life accessible to powerful people the world seems to have forgotten.  Naomi has the uncanny ability to connect with your thoughts and a gift for communicating with people across of lines of color, creed and class.

She overflows with energy and devotes intense caring to fighting on behalf of a disempowered neighbor’s causes. With a powerful multicultural mindset, she shows through action that changing the world is not just an occupation, its a way of life.

One of Maji Mazuri’s most recent ardent supporters is Jacquie Berg. Co-founder of 2Family.org, Jacquie has been recognized in the past year in Signature LA magazine as the Top 40 Under 40 Making a Difference and 2008’s Who’s Who Among Executive and Professional Women.

2Family.org has made it easy for anyone, anywhere, anytime to improve a child's life by removing the distance that alienates struggling children from the world’'s generosity.  For Jacquie, what is truly important in life is improving other people’s lives.

“Technology has revolutionized the world; new things are possible every day and simplifying giving back has joined the revolution!” says Jacquie

After living in Africa for 2 months as a contestant on CBS’s “Survivor”  Jacquie now commits her time to social good. 2Family.org  works with youth from all over the world challenged by extraordinary circumstances such as homelessness, violence, addictions, disorders, and unstable living situations.

“All they need extra motivation to break a cycle of struggle, to dream bigger and to reach their full potential,” Jacquie says.

To partner with Jacquie, 2family.org and Maji Mazuri visit inspire a child

The global community we are living in today requires extraordinary figures to take extraordinary action. For Sara Feldman, that mandate builds upon a lifetime spent championing shared economic prosperity through robust transatlantic relationships. At age 17, she went on a mission trip to Tanzania where she spent a summer helping to help build a school outside of Arusha. She returned to Africa on a study abroad program traveling through rural and urban Kenya in a series of placements and internships.

After completing her undergraduate degree in Dramatic writing, and a brief unfulfilling stint as a screen writer, she applied to Columbia where she was drawn to the International Social Welfare program. While in school she sought volunteer experience. She reconnected with contacts in Kenya and decided to work with Abila Creative, making films that document the stories of women and children in Kisumu.

"A friend and I packed everything we could to take back," she says. "People generously sent in donations. We had 350 pounds of camcorders and cameras."

Thus began the highly eventful trip back to Africa. Within two days of landing in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, they were huddled in a matatu, the local public transportation minivan, on the bumpy trip to Kisumu, a small town in Western Kenya.

They focused on finding out what issues were going on the community, from the perspective of people. The answers ranged from lack of role models to poor sanitation, induction into prostitution and young people oppression. The root cause was clear - poverty. Sara understood that lack of resources, not ability or intelligence, was the real reason behind the stunted progress of the people in these communities and vowed to do something about it.

Hence was borne Voices for Umoja.

Voices for umoja (voices) is dedicated to using various forms of communication and action to create change at the community level and beyond. Voices strives to connect groups and individuals with the goal of strengthening our global community.

Voices has recently partnered with Maji Mazuri to give young people the opportunity to use media to voice their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and experiences. Using donated video and still camera equipment, Voices is starting a group dialogue amongst youth in Kenya and Los Angeles using the internet, photography, and video.

To learn more about how you can give involved in the dialogue and help visit Voices at VoicesforUmoja.org.

Jump-start a broad, global system in micro-building.

It's Simple.

Give $10 and invite 10 people to give $10 each.

See, a little can make a world of difference!

You can stop the bullet!

“What I Can Do”

We’ve seen it in the News, on TV on the radio. We’ve heard stories from people who’ve been there. There are families in the world struggling to fend for themselves whether it be in finding food, medical help or school fees. To have no access to even the most basic necessities in life is more that most of us can phantom or bear.

There are many people who’s hearts are torn over the tragedy of this situation and feel powerless to help but this your chance to do something, something big that will help them and at the same time help you.

All proceeds from this competition will go to  Maji Mazuri. Not only that, but the winner of the competition will also receive $700.00!!!

SO WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO??

Maji Mazuri is presenting an Online Video Talent Contest based on the theme of

“What I Can Do”

Yay,

Spring is here and Maji Mazuri is gearing up to introduce all kinds of exciting new opportunities to particpate in global change online and in your neighborhood.

Nothing helps create global change better than a movement of brilliant like-minded people. We want you. We've created an incredible, brand new website and invite you to become part of our community. Check out www.majimazuri.org to see what Maji Mazuri is doing to help change the lives of people in Mathare Valley and all over THE WORLD.

If you want to become a part of this powerful groundswell please join our network. All it takes is the click of a button.

Pass on the news by emailing friends, family and co-workers and posting the link to your Facebook, Twitter and other social network accounts. All of us here really need your help spreading the word about Maji Mazuri and our mission.

Get others connected and contributing to this profound 21st Century Movement. Keep an eye out for more Maji Mazuri updates about new opportunities to make a difference, videos, interviews and news. All these exciting additions will be arriving soon.

We look forward to hearing all of your comments online and meeting you in person at our events this season.

Thank you!

Warmest regards,

Wandia & The Maji Mazuri Web Team

Join our community: www.majimazuri.org

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/majimazuri or Find us on  Facebook

Posted by admin on  Sunday, March 9th, 2008

Despite abject poverty, desperate living conditions and little or no education, local people are starting small businesses, sending their children to school and improving the quality of their lives. All this through a local program, Maji Mazuri (which means ‘clean water’), run by a dedicated Kenya team, with funding and support from people like you around the world.

More than 3 million people live in Nairobi, capital of Kenya in East Africa, and 2/3 of them live in slums like Mathare Valley, where Maji Mazuri operates. There, some 500,000 people live crammed together in huts made of bits of tin, wood and cardboard. There is no sewer system, no clean water, no electric power, no paved streets. Unemployment is very high; crime is rife; illegal alcohol and drugs are plentiful; violence is endemic; and HIV/AIDS is widespread.Maji Mazuri – ‘clean water’In 1987, a remarkable Kenya woman – Wanjiku Kironyo – stepped into this world, and began to work with some of the women to empower them to change their own lives. What started as a small micro-loan program has blossomed into seven projects: a head start program in the slum, two schools, an orphanage for disabled children, youth training and development programs, a farm and a greatly expanded business loan program – with several hundred members.

A partnership between dedicated caring individuals in Africa and people like you and me. The Maji Mazuri team in Kenya has no shortage of dedication, commitment, ideas and compassion. What they need from us is financial support, and to know that many people in the developed world care about Africa and want to help. Hope for the future is a powerful force for good!

Let’s show them that we care….and help them to transform their lives!Please take a look at the rest of the site and find out more about us, and about the good work of Maji Mazuri in Kenya.Maji Mazuri USA is a non profit 501 c 3 organization approved by the IRS. In 2005, more than 99% of the funds we received went directly to Kenya.

Our audited accounts are on the site.

Since we launched our appeal for funds to help the members of Maji Mazuri who lost their homes and/or their businesses in the riots that occurred after the disputed general elction held at the end of December, people have responded very generously from all over the world. We received several donations of $1,000, and many smaller gifts, including $27 from a young girl of 8 who sent us her pocket money.

To-date we have raised over $22,000, and all of these funds have been sent to Kenya where they are being distributed by Wanjiku Kironyo and her team to the victims of the violence. A big “thank you” to everyone who contributed so generously!