Tewi

What the work looks like, week to week.

Short field notes from the programs, in roughly the order they happened. More arrive as the work continues.

A group of Maasai women in red and yellow checkered shuka sit together with a locked metal savings box on a table, while a toddler reaches toward it.
A facilitator in a red shuka addresses the women's savings group gathered under an acacia tree.Close-up of two Maasai women wearing elaborate beaded necklaces during the savings group meeting.

Girl & Women Empowerment

The box with three padlocks

October 20, 2026

Every member holds a key, and the group's savings box only opens when enough of them show up to open it together. That is the whole design: no single person holds the money alone.

Women in colorful shuka cloth sit with a small herd of goats distributed to them as part of a livelihoods program.

Girl & Women Empowerment

Twenty goats, one new start

August 14, 2026

Ten households, mostly women-headed, each received two goats this season, a small herd that can be grown, sold, or passed on. It is not a handout. It is a start.

Community members filling yellow jerry cans at a water point, with a young tree nursery and school buildings in the background.

Regenerative Agriculture

A morning at the water point

June 12, 2026

Jerry cans line up before sunrise. Behind them, the young trees planted last season are tall enough to cast their own shade now, a small sign the nursery is holding.

A man stands in muddy water at the bottom of a deep hand-dug well.

Climate & Disaster Risk Reduction

Digging by hand, for water that lasts

July 22, 2026

No machinery reaches this far out. What reaches is a shovel, a bucket, and whoever is willing to climb down and keep digging until the water comes.

A teacher leads a class of young children seated on wooden benches under a large acacia tree, using a chalkboard propped against the trunk.

Girl & Women Empowerment

Under the acacia, class begins

August 20, 2024

No classroom walls yet, just a chalkboard leaned against a tree and rows of hands going up. It is not where the lesson should happen, but it is where it happens.

A predator-proof livestock boma under construction, fenced with wire mesh and timber posts.

Wildlife Conservation

A fence that lets both sides win

September 2, 2026

A reinforced boma means fewer livestock lost at night, and fewer reasons to see wildlife as the enemy. Simple wire, carefully built, changes the whole equation.

A young woman kneels to plant a tree sapling in red soil while schoolchildren look on.

Climate & Disaster Risk Reduction

Planting season at the school grounds

May 26, 2026

Each hole is dug by hand, each sapling set by a student who will watch it grow through the rest of their time at school. It is a small climate strategy with a very long memory.

International visitors wrapped in shuka cloth stand with Maasai warriors under an acacia tree during a cultural exchange.

Cultural Heritage Preservation

Guests under the acacia

June 18, 2026

Visitors wrap themselves in shuka cloth and sit with warriors who explain a ceremony passed down long before either of them arrived. Tourism, done this way, becomes a two-way exchange.

Women filling containers with water at a communal tap surrounded by dry acacia trees.

Regenerative Agriculture

Carrying water, carrying each other

September 30, 2024

The nearest tap is still a walk away for many households. Women make the trip together, and the queue at the pump doubles as the morning's news exchange.

A large mixed herd of goats and sheep grazing across open grassland at golden hour.

Regenerative Agriculture

Grazing grounds, after the rains

June 16, 2024

A good rainy season shows up first in the grass. Herds spread wide across land that, a few months earlier, could barely support them.

A giraffe feeding from an acacia tree on the open savanna.

Wildlife Conservation

Sharing the corridor

January 4, 2026

Giraffe still move freely through this part of the rangeland. Keeping it that way, without pushing grazing families out, is the whole balance we are working toward.

A young TEWI volunteer in a branded t-shirt holds a potted mango seedling ready for planting.

Climate & Disaster Risk Reduction

One seedling, one afternoon

April 4, 2025

Ask any volunteer and they will tell you the tree planting days blur together after a while. The trees do not. Each one stays exactly where it was put.

TEWI team members visiting a rural school, surrounded by cheering children in uniform.

Girl & Women Empowerment

A visit to the school

May 26, 2026

The whole compound turns out when the team arrives. Half the visit is program work, the other half is just noise and clapping, which matters just as much.