About Us
About Us
Relationships between diverse ecosystems and communities
Who We Are
The Maasai Community Partnership Project was established at Prescott College in 2004 to house the emerging collaboration between the College and the Institute for Maasai Education, Research, and Conservation (MERC). Hundreds of students, staff, board members, and faculty of Prescott College, and equal numbers of Maasai people, have contributed to the growth of this partnership since.
Brief History of Dopoi and the Maasai Community Partnership Project
The program was first created in 2004 by a cohort of Prescott College students and faculty, and representatives of the Maasai community. In 2007, funds were secured to purchase 10 acres of land near the town of Talek, to provide a more permanent home for the program. Beginning in 2008, students of the field studies program began to research a case of disputed community land at a place called Mau Narok, and a movement for land justice was born of that work which today leads to the anticipated return of 30,000 acres of ancestral homeland. That success led to a wider recognition of the importance of research to Maasai activists, and to the fuller development of the Dopoi Center as a research institute.
The Center hosts community meetings, training, and researchers, and is a multilingual and multicultural resource for the Maasai and Prescott College communities. In 2015, Maasai Field Guides launched a labor association to promote Maasai economic empowerment, supported by the work of Prescott college students and faculty who created together with the Maasai Field Guide Training Program. Students have also supported Maasai women’s activism through collaborating on water projects and beading cooperatives.
Explore the Center
Dopoi is a resource for the Maasai community and host to many meetings, trainings and ceremonies, and a base of organizing.
Dopoi houses our collaboration with our closest International Partners, and is the home of Prescott College, in Maasailand. Dopoi hosts Collaborative Research and International Study programs.
Dopoi houses the yearly Maasai Field Guide Training Program, the office of the Mara Guides Association, the Olosho Bead Cooperative, and is the future home of the Maasai Automotive Education Center.
The Center
The Dopoi Center is located on ten acres of land overlooking the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in a rural and remote high savanna area of the Rift Valley near the town of Talek. The land is covered with acacia, olive, and other savanna vegetation and over 300 species of birds including weaver, shrike, and spurfowl. It is also inhabited by elephants, lions and other ungulate species, the latter especially during the months of June-October as it is on the path of the annual wildebeest migration from the Serengeti. The Center is surrounded by villages and their herds of cattle, and we are a mere few miles from the world famous Maasai Mara Wildlife Reserve. Several lodges are located nearby, especially along the Talek River, as well as private conservancies.
Dopoi is located in a neighborhood of villages and we share the land with the larger community of people, herds of cattle, goats, sheep, and wildlife. The neighborhood includes two primary schools, and we support the community’s efforts to educate children in various ways. We also collaborate as a community on projects, most recently on a Rotary funded water project that serves the entire area.
