Selling Milk Improves Livelihoods & Empowers Maasai Women

Bagamoyo District Council and MS Tanzania are partnering with pastoralist organisation NARAMATISHO to improve the livelihood of livestock keepers. Establishment of milk collection centres has led to better incomes which go directly to the Maasai women, empowering them in their daily lives.

The success of the milk business demonstrates that women in the communities have been empowered, although their numbers in the cooperative's management committee are still low.

It is 3 am at night. Maasai women in the village of Lulenge wake up and wash their eyes and hands. They make their way to the livestock enclosure by torchlight, where they milk the cattle until 6am. Three boys employed by the women collect the milk and bring it to a milk centre in Ubena Zomozi 11 kilometers away. Each boy can carry up to 100 litres of milk in buckets on his bicycles. Once their milk is on the way to the centre the women move on to housework, sweeping and cleaning their boma. ‘And preparing tea for daddy’, they comment laughingly.

The boys arrive at the milk centre around 8.30 am. The milk is quality tested and, if approved, poured into the milk tank. Finally, the quantity delivered is registered for later payment. During the day the milk is collected by a private buyer with whom the centre has a contract.

Starting up the milk centre
Since 2005, NARAMATISHO has established four centres to collect, refrigerate and sell milk in Bagamoyo District – all managed by Maasai. The milk centre in Ubena Zomozi mainly serves two villages, Lulenge and Matuli.

Finding a building for the milk centre was not an easy task. After settling on a building and entering into a contract with a buyer, Royal Dairy Products, who also donated a tank, it was discovered that the building had an old electricity bill for USD 800 outstanding. Now the cooperative had a tank but no building! Fortunately, two kind-hearted Maasai brothers offered to build a house and install the electricity required. The centre opened in September 2006, in the early part of the dry season. Although milk was scarce at the time, it got of to a good start with a dedicated staff of four people. 

An empty cash box  
Not long after the centre had been established, a member of the staff stole TSh. 2.5 million from the centre. Once the theft was discovered, it was too late – the cash box was empty and the young man had disappeared. In keeping with Maasai tradition, the cooperative leaders met with the young man’s father, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Maasai in the area, and agreed that the son should pay back TSh. 500,000. In the end, though, only TSh. 120,000 was paid to the centre.

Misfortunes rarely come singly. Shortly after the theft, Royal Dairy Products went bankrupt and the milk cooler broke down, leaving the centre with no buyer, no refrigeration and no money to pay the livestock keepers for their milk. Fortunately, a milk tank donated by a group of previous development workers with MS and Grenaa Production School arrived from Denmark to keep the centre going, and eventually both tanks were in place again and business could continue.

Overcoming two major crises
After these disruptions, the cooperative faced two major challenges – a crisis of confidence and a financial crisis. The Maasai women were reluctant to deliver milk due to lack of payment and rumours that the Board had emptied the cash box. The number of boys delivering milk to the centre dropped from 25 to four.

To convince the women to deliver milk again, the management and Rune Elmgren Jakobsen, one of the MS Tanzania development workers, campaigned to inform them about what actually happened and how the centre had overcome these problems. The women began to return and slowly the centre rose again. ‘We had faith in the Board and we also heard the truth behind the affair from people in Ubena Zomozi’, say the women in Lulenge.

To overcome the financial crisis, the staff was reduced to two people. In the beginning, they only received meals as payment. However, what really saved the centre were financial loans from a new private buyer and Rune, as well as an agreement with the livestock keepers to delay receipt of their payments until the centre made profit again. Now the number of boys delivering milk is 27 and the centre has been able to save some money in the bank.

‘When the money goes directly to the women it is used for the family and for small projects. In the end it helps the community at large,' says Vice Chair of NARAMATISHO, Raheli Mtumia.

Reflections on the past
‘If we could turn back time and do something in a different way, the Board would definitely be more active from the beginning… When we finally went over the accounts we realised the money had been stolen over a longer period of time. The incident could have been avoided or at least reduced’, says Kizota. The Board has learned from this costly lesson. Today it monitors the centre’s activities and accounts much more closely. But Kizota also expresses the hope that the Board and staff will receive more training in financial management. They perform their level best as it is, but the task is difficult for them.

Improved livelihoods
Prior to the building of the centre at Ubena Zomozi, the women in Lulenge delivered their milk to Mdaula – a village far away. Because of the long distance, the boys arrived at Mdaula later in the morning and the milk tank was sometimes already full. The unsold milk would then be wasted as it turned sour.  ‘Before, the women also sold the milk to middlemen along the main road, however this was poor business. The middlemen cheated with the prices’, adds the Vice Chair in Naramatisho, Raheli Mtumia. The wasted efforts to sell the milk and the low income often made the women give up the business.

Now that the women have their own centre, life is much easier for them. They have a stable market, which enables them to budget and gives them sustainability. And even though they would still like a better price for the milk, they know the centre pays the market price. Using their improved incomes from milk sales, the women have been able to set up other small income-generating projects selling sugar, soap and cloth. Now, also, they can buy on credit from shops.

One indicator of the improved livelihoods is the fact that families need to sell fewer cattle. Increasingly, money from milk is used for expenses such as sending children to school and for buying food – even paying for the use of the cattle dip.

The women receive money directly from the milk centre every tenth day. They say that if the men ever decide that they want to take some of the money they will stop milking. ‘When the money goes directly to the women it is used for the family and for small projects. In the end it helps the community at large. But if the men get the money, it will often be spent in a bar’, says Raheli.

Standing solid on two feet
The milk centres established by NARAMATISHO face day-to-day challenges such as fluctuations in market prices, reliability of buyers and maintenance costs associated with the tanks. Raheli comments: ‘If the support from MS Tanzania stopped, some of our centres would be in trouble. But we will not give up. We have plans to make it possible for Naramatisho to stand on its own two feet. One way of doing this is to increase our membership fees and another one is to fundraise in the Maasai community’.

‘We want to make NARAMATISHO strong and sustainable from within – not by entering into partnership with other donors’, adds the Secretary of NARAMATISHO, Onesmo Ngulele with great earnestness. Although Raheli and Onesmo agree, this is easier said than done.

Women's empowerment
Since the beginning of the partnership with NARAMATISHO, MS Tanzania has emphasised the importance of empowering women. The success of the milk business demonstrates that women in the communities have been empowered, but female participation in the management committee of the cooperative is still very low.

According to Raheli, one of the reasons for the women’s absence from meetings is that invitations are sent out with too short notice, allowing them little time to delegate their many domestic responsibilities to others. But there are also other traditional reasons. Many Maasai women are not used to travelling and often need approval from their husbands to attend meetings. Furthermore, very few women are literate, another significant barrier.

Raheli herself is a role model for Maasai women. ‘Today Raheli can easily give her opinion and comment on things in front of men and in large gatherings. This was unthinkable three years ago’, says Rune. One of the projects she is responsible for is a SACCOS (savings and credit cooperatives) for women only. It is not very big yet but is doing well. The women are determined to succeed and to develop each other and themselves. They are especially proud that the women-only SACCOS has succeeded while the SACCOS for both men and women has collapsed.