Oliveseed Foundation

Literacy & educational enrichment:oliveseed began as a library organization, and educational enrichment for underserved areas continues to be our central pillar. In 2023, we continued our work in rural morocco, establishing a new children's library in the amazigh village of ait oumanouz in the south of the country. We also ran our 3rd mlp (morocco library project) short story competition, a nationwide project for rural teens, with published anthologies. As an extension of that successful program, in late 2023 we launched an essay competition on "the challenges of today" for rural students in both morocco and kenya.in kenya, we work in the communities living alongside the maasai mara national reserve, a disadvantaged region with few educational resources and high rates of illiteracy and school dropout. In 2023, we built upon our successful program at schools, developing a science lab for maasai mara high school and a library for enturoto primary school, our 5th school library in the area. Through our follow-up research, we found a dramatic increase in test scores at these schools, and added more materials where needed. Our education programs provide access to knowledge for over 5000 students a year, as each library becomes the school's learning center. Also in 2023, we built a second solar-powered manyatta (village) library, replicating the success of our first manyatta library, and we expanded our scholarship program in kenya to include more students who would not be able to attend high school without this support.

Oliveseed women's work center (maasai mara, kenya):most adult women in the rural maasai mara are not educated and have no marketable skills or economic opportunities. To address this need, we built and operate a solar-powered women's work center with income-generating enterprises for women from 17 local families. We provide training, supplies, equipment, sales channels, and the work space. With this support, women at the work center are making beadwork arts to sell at nearby safari camps and are sewing clothing and other items to sell to the community and to safari visitors. In 2023, we completed development of the center, with furnishings, solar power, sanitary latrines, and rainwater harvesting. We also began outfitting the center with sewing machines and related supplies, and began a training program in sewing. Today, the women at this center are selling beadwork and sewing sanitary kits to keep girls in school, while earning an income for the first time in their lives.there is nothing else like this in the region today, and as we learn from it, the center will grow with opportunities for more micro-enterprises in the years ahead.

Clean water initiatives (maasai mara, kenya):in the area where we work in the maasai mara, most people get their drinking water from open pits or rivers shared with wildlife and cattle, and 80% of hospitalizations are the result of drinking dirty water. In 2023, we continued our development of the lemek hills purified water facility in the mara north region in partnership with the impact investment firm global water first. The facility was completed in early 2023, with deep borehole, solar-powered pumping to bring clean water to the surface, 20,000 liters of water storage, and taps providing free water to 1000s of people in the area. Later in the year, we built sanitation facilities for staff, a loading zone, and road improvements. In the future, filtered bottled water from this facility will also be sold to safari camps, to help fund community programs. We facilitated the construction of this project, and through a directed donation contributed a pickup truck for construction and water deliveries.in fall of 2023, we built two similar clean water facilities inside water-scarce communities in the maasai mara. Each has a deep borehole, solar pumping, storage, and taps for easy access to water. In both of these communities, women had been walking many kilometers to find water (from dirty sources) each day and were carrying 20 liters home on their backs. Now they have taps with clean water right inside their villages. These projects were funded by an earmarked donation to us; and we handed the facilities over to the communities upon completion. Together these projects are providing clean water free to 1000s of people. On a smaller scale, we also facilitated the distribution of water filters at schools and homes with our partner mama project.

We co-founded a registered nonprofit in kenya in 2022 called Oliveseed kenya cbo (community-based organization) to own the acre of land the women's center is on and to manage and account for the salaries of local staff, vehicle fuel and maintenance necessary for carrying out projects, buildup and maintenance of an office, wifi, and general offices expenses. The staff are a director who organizes and implements projects, part-time accountant, project manager for the women's center, and security guards at the water and women's center properties. Their books were audited in 2023, as required by kenyan law.earthquake community relief in the atlas mountains, moroccoafter the devastating earthquake in the atlas mountains of morocco in september 2023, we ran a fundraiser and provided emergency relief to two communities associated with teachers in our network there. We provided funding for blankets, food, water, and tents, as volunteers from two teacher organizations delivered the supplies to the hardest-hit areas.