Main areas of work related to the Convention:
Maasai cultural heritage is a community based organisation formed by the community themselves and registered under the ministry of culture and social services. We are documenting taditional knowledge that exist within the elderly people which faces a threat of disapearance and develop community education programs for the youth to learn about it.we document and preserve our collections through digital recording and archiving them and avail them to the community through education programs. We also
help the community to develop their protocols inorder to reduce exploitation of their cultural resources. We also support youth to explore their traditional talents mostly in performing arts and women in artistic work by enhancing their indgenous knowledge on making unique genuine traditional artworkwe preserving all our collections to ensure that the future generation will get something to see as som of our heriage is
disapearing. The organisation being a community driven, it is working in ilngwesi community of the laikipia maasai who share the same culture, way of life and traditional tboos. The population of this community is approximate 15,OOO.the organisation is runn by local people from the same community who have skills in culture documentation and intellectual property management beside other speciality like in community
developmenUhere has been training programs participated by the two members of this community runing the organisation organised by world intellectual property organisation, a specialised UN agency on intellectual property issues in conjunction with center for documentary studies in duke university in north carolina and american folklore center. The two specialise on these skills from duke university and have been working in the community.
Objectives
Our Vision
Maasai cultural heritage envisions a world where the indigenous cultures, communities and diversity are recognized respected and protected against commercial exploitation and abuse.
Our Mission
MCH exists to facilitate strengthening, promotion and preservation of Maasai indigenous cultures and heritage in its diverse forms.
2. OBJECTIVES
1. To preserve, protect and promote Maasai culture through cultural education and cultural talks.
2. Promote recognition of and respect of Maasai indigenous people's culture by designing website and posting all cultural information.
3. Promote tolerance and understanding of the cultural spiritual and language diversity through traditional songs recording and information dissemination.
4. Enhance sustainable economic development drawing on the wealth of knowledge and experience of the Maasai culture to advocate against corruption and protect human rights.
5.To use the traditional songs to raise community awareness and education on productive health and HIV/Aids.
6. Establish a cultural museum and documentation center for storage and preservation of the cultural art fats and community research and database.
7. Enhance and uplift the economy of the Maasai people through livelihoods supports programmes and encourage advancement of their cultural practices that forms back borne of their economy.
Cooperation
The organisation works with a principle of preserving culture and respecting cutural diversity. We work in the community with total respect to their traditional governance system and also understanding and respecting community secrets. We carryout our programs according to the community way of life and time considering other factors like when they are available, drought seasons,what is their priority, what to be recorded and therefore our planning is based on the community timelines throughout the year.
We have recenty documented a community age group rights of passage an event that take place after every ten years that was the last for that age group and the future generation may not have that opportunity to perform this can of a ritual, so we document and preserve information and make them available to the community whenever there is need.