International Collaborative overview
The Maasai Stoves & Solar Project of the International Collaborative works with the Maasai people of Tanzania. The organization provides financial resources, technological information and applications, and committed staff to work for a better life for the people.
The Project began with smoke-eliminating cookstoves for Maasai homes. It expanded to more sectors, once the many improvements possible were seen and understood. There are many areas where good ideas, design, and an experimental approach lead to a significant uplift.
International Collaborative activities have their intrinsic benefits, with the important additional impact of maintaining excitement and optimism for the people.
Most important is the long-term impact on our Maasai collaborators. They’ve experienced the change that is possible through cooperative work, and continue to reach for a better life for themselves and their communities.
Overall impact
Transformed lives and cleaner environments
In almost twenty years of Project work, the International Collaborative developed ways to improve health, income, and opportunities for women, and provide environmentally sound approaches to diversifying traditional herding and farming:
- Chimney stoves: installing efficient, safe, smoke-removing chimney stoves in Maasai homes to reduce disease and burns
- Solar electricity: powering homes with individual systems and settlement-wide micro-grid solar systems
- Climate change adaptation (livestock): producing cow fodder and hay, and providing a feedlot to establish alternative ways to manage livestock in difficult weather
- Climate change adaptation (agriculture): demonstrating farming, using solar power to access groundwater and utilize efficient drip irrigation for drought-safe farming
- Women’s financial and social enhancement: organizing women’s groups in the villages for resource sharing and lending and for strengthening individual and collective businesses
- Safe water: sanitizing water from polluted ponds used by families, making it available for daily collection at convenient faucets
- Dairy production: creating income-generating dairy with employment for women
Project areas
Maasai Stoves & Solar Project
The Maasai Stoves & Solar Project began by addressing a serious international health issue: indoor smoke in the homes of pastoral people, caused by open wood-burning fires. We design and install clean, efficient stoves and solar systems, manufacturing the stoves locally.
As of 2026, more than 7,100 stoves were installed by the Maasai Women’s installation teams. An expert team comes to the new village to train women who will become the installers there, receiving payment for each completed stove.
A dramatic lift from poverty
Having a few watts of light at night, and the ability to safely charge cell phones in the home, provides a dramatic lift from poverty. The Maasai Stoves & Solar Project provides electrification on a home-by-home basis and also with settlement-wide micro-grids. The micro-grids supply power to all the homes and corrals of Maasai family settlements (or bomas). As of 2026, seventy bomas have micro-grid electrical service.
Health and household safety impact
Replacing the open fires with our chimney stoves reduces smoke from cooking by more than 90 percent. This brings carbon monoxide down to an acceptable level. The drop in particulates alleviates chronic coughing and congestion. With 25 out of 1000 children dying from lung disease each year, these reductions have a powerful health impact.
In addition, eliminating floor-level open fires removes the risk of serious burns for toddlers.
Environmental impact
Each stove reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 3.6 metric tons per year. Women who have stoves can now gather 130 pounds less firewood each week than needed for open fires. This relieves stress on the local forests.
Community impact
- 12 fewer hours of menial labor needed each week: stove-owning women have more time for family and new activities
- Stove parts local manufacturing: the stove’s fireboxes are manufactured in our factory, meaning skill building, employment, and income to people, right in the community
- Useful hours added to the 12 hours of sunlight: reliable evening solar power lifts families out of the darkness of 12-hour equatorial nights, expanding time options for education and security
- Safe in-home phone charging: families charge cell phones securely at home, no longer paying fees, or risking phone tampering
Safe Water Project
All over the world, towns and cities use chlorination to give people access to safe water. The International Collaborative uses chlorination as a practical approach to producing safe water in Maasai villages where, otherwise, women gather water from polluted ponds every day.
Each Water Project installation produces 40 liters of water daily per family that is safe, without the need for boiling or other additional treatment.
A Maasai woman typically collects 80 liters of water per day from a polluted pond shared with about 100 other women. We install our chlorination systems right in that area. The system provides five or ten thousand liters per day of safe water, forty for each woman.
Installation costs $35 per family. The water treatment chemicals cost just a few cents per month per family. It is very important that an experienced person manages the system. To produce safe water, the chemicals must be used at the right time in the correct amounts.
The International Collaborative completed and fully tested the water system pilot program in 2018. We customize the basic system to fit the particular features of each water source and local collecting conditions.
As of 2026, the Water Project now has eight installed systems. Together, these provide 48,000 liters a day of safe water, serving 1200 families.
Water Project impact
Thirty-five Maasai children out of 1000 die before the age of five from waterborne disease, according to district health officials. Many more children suffer from non-lethal incapacitation, making life difficult for the whole family.
Before the introduction of the Water Project, there had been little opportunity to learn about bacterial pathogens. Many Maasai villagers hadn’t realized the waters were so dangerous, especially for their children.
The prevention of waterborne diseases lies in getting the pathogens out of the locally-sourced water. Maasai women who do not yet have access to the Water Project bring water home that they collect at rain-filled surface ponds. These ponds are seriously infected by E. coli and other pathogens. Boiling works to sanitize water but is a costly option, out of reach for most.
The International Collaborative Water Project successfully addresses water safety issues with these initial installations, with the hope of many more systems to come.
Women embracing power
“We didn’t know we could do work like this, building the chimney and installing the firebox. We thought only men could.”
Paini Lorwasa, Eluwai, Tanzania
Power is the capacity to do: to accomplish the things you choose. The International Collaborative works to help women identify the things they want to change; to have the encouragement and social conditions to make it possible; and to build the financial resources needed to make it practical.
Putting stove installation into the women’s hands was the first step towards this power.
Because of the stove’s chimney design, the International Collaborative stove needs expert installation. The Project staff realized that this need presented great opportunity for women, both for earned income and the chance to develop new skills.
Maasai women who participate as installers are profoundly appreciative of the opportunity to learn to use tools and master construction and design challenges. They report feeling proud of their accomplishments.
As installation trainers, they especially like the chance to visit new villages and train the women there. As of 2026, more than 450 women have become expert stove installers.
Women’s Groups impact
“Women’s empowerment is not just a goal, but a means, a central element of methodology, and essential for success.”
Robert V. Lange
Women need social connection and independent income, especially in a polygamous and patriarchal society, such as the Maasai’s.
The International Collaborative organizes two types of women’s groups. One type is self-selecting based on family and social relationships, but not marital status. The other kind is focused on strengthening widows. In Maasai society, widowhood means that the husband is either dead, absent, or not contributing to childcare and other family needs.
Both types of groups have a lending system to help members strengthen their individual businesses while managing their family challenges. Half the groups have collective businesses. The productivity of their new social relations is a powerful and exciting thing for the women.
Livestock fattening businesses are among the most interesting and inspiring ventures that some of the groups have chosen to develop. Selling the livestock into the food supply chain brings significant outside funds into the village.
In addition, the program has created many opportunities for new kinds of relationships between the women and the men. Maasai men are well known for their traditional role as herders. They have readily formed advisory groups, helping the women benefit from their great experience. The Project helps those men organize themselves into advisory committees with members from multiple villages.
The International Collaborative has organized 65 groups of 25 women each in more than ten villages. All receive training. The groups receive additional capital as a boost, half from the Global Fund for Widows and half directly from the International Collaborative.
Mesha Singolyo, the International Collaborative’s outstanding organizer of programs for women and girls, also serves as the Tanzanian Director for the Global Fund for Widows. She organizes, trains, and raises and manages funds for the women’s groups.
Cornflour Mills and Dairy Farm
The International Collaborative develops business with facilities that the women can eventually own, manage, and earn income, while also providing useful services and products for the community.
Cornflour mills
The International Collaborative invested in two cornflour mills. One is run by a women’s group in Selela village and the other in Emairete town, Monduli Juu.
The cornflour mills are thriving. Located at the edge of regional markets, women buy corn kernels and mill them there the same day. They can take them right home and make Ugali, a Tanzanian cornflour staple, similar to grits.
The mill requires a good supply of electricity to run the grinding machine. Electricity costs are reasonable, as the machines run only a couple of days a week, when the markets are open.
Dairy Farm
The International Collaborative Dairy Farm is located in Ngarash, just south of Monduli town. This business is especially for women.
Why are we starting a dairy? It is not only a venture but also an adventure. It fits our land and can grow, not only as a business but also as an innovation opportunity.
The dairy property currently includes a building for storing the cow fodder that we produce in our Rift Valley factory. The hay from our hay farm is especially suited for milk cows.
The dairy is starting with just two mature milk cows. Right from the beginning, the women can sell milk while also making a profit from selling our fodder in and around Monduli town.
We visited a couple of small thriving dairies in the area to research what is needed for success, and as of 2026, we are in the midst of designing and building the necessary structures.
Climate Change Demonstration Projects
“I’ve learned how to keep my cows healthy during the dry season and when there is no grass.”
Mr. Olesereti of Baraka Village
Climate adaptation
Lessening dependence on unreliable rain
We continue with demonstration programs in livestock and agricultural areas to help the Maasai explore creative directions they can take in the face of the challenges to their rain-based economy.
Livestock management
The Maasai’s traditional herding practices have made them East Africa’s most famous pastoralists. But because of periods of serious drought in recent years, and the unpredictable weather in the changing climate, new approaches are essential.
Climate change is already here for rain-based livestock-based economies, affecting pastoralists in the plains of northern Tanzania. There will continue to be some seasons with plenty of rain and grass, when traditional livestock practices will still function for the people.
It is important for the herders to be creative and open-minded in order to manage livestock for economic and social survival, into the future.
The International Collaborative holds training workshops for herders at our facilities, to demonstrate the basis for flexibility with livestock management.
Established in 2017, the Project’s Manyara Feedlot is already having an impact, recognized by the Tanzanian government’s Uhuru Torch Award, providing a model of the flexibility required.
The Feedlot demonstrates how to care for cattle with purchased hay and food supplements, when weather conditions require it. A good feedlot must be located where cattle can get food, water, and rest.
Grazing in drought conditions is problematic, not only due to shortages but also because walking long distances to better grazing land is stressful for livestock, reducing their weight and undermining their market value.
In addition to the Feedlot resources, the International Collaborative Fodder Factory provides supplemental feed, essential during times of drought. Produced from nutritious industrial waste, the fodder is low cost, high quality, and very nutritious.
Farming
Farming is also rain-dependent. In this region, even with good rain, there is often only one crop per year. But with rain starting and stopping without warning, even that one crop is uncertain.
In August 2023, the International Collaborative established a Demonstration Farm Project, or “Smart Farm.” In response to our growing awareness of the severe impact of climate change on rain-dependent farming, we purchased a six-and-a-half-acre plot in Selela to experiment with different crops and crop combinations.
As with grazing, the problem is too widespread for the International Collaborative to bring a solution to each farmer. Instead, we can create and demonstrate new ways to farm successfully in the face of changing climate.
We are exploring the feasibility of a greater use of groundwater. The ICSEE invested in drilling a borehole of sufficient depth to reach groundwater. Solar power drives the pumps, removing dependence on diesel fuel or the national electrical grid power.
This source is working well. We’ve raised and harvested multiple crops including tomatoes, corn, and bananas. We are planting a new type of grass that is especially nourishing to use in our Dairy Farm and to distribute to other livestock managers.
The primary purpose of the Smart Farm is to demonstrate that groundwater use can be financially viable with smart irrigation and crop choices. We are doing what we can to develop ways to maintain food production in this rain-dependent land.
In addition, the International Collaborative’s 43-acre Demonstration Hay Farm shows how grass can be grown in abundance, when weather conditions allow. The hay can then be cut, baled, and stored to be fed to cattle in feedlots, when grazing is not possible, due to drought.
Meet Natoiwok Saetwa
I come from the village of Ruvurimit, in Simanjiro district, where tradition and resilience shape who we are.
In our culture, the boma is more than a home. It is where families grow, elders share wisdom, and women nurture the future. But for generations, our bomas have also been filled with smoke. Cooking over open fires inside our huts meant constant exposure to smoke that burned our eyes, made our children cough, and harmed our lungs.
We did not complain because this is how it had always been. But deep inside, many of us wished for a change.
That change is now beginning through a partnership with ICSEE. They have brought to our village a project that offers something simple, yet life-changing: stoves with chimneys. These stoves are built right inside our huts but they carry the smoke outside, so the air inside will remain clean.
We women will learn how to build the stoves ourselves. We will be trained in constructing the stove step-by-step. We are excited not just to receive these stoves, but to take part in making them with our own hands.
Soon our children will sit beside the fire without coughing. Our eyes will not burn while cooking. We will no longer live in smoke-filled homes.
And most importantly, we will show that we Maasai women can lead, build, and change the story of our villages.
We are proud people. We cherish our traditions, but we also embrace what brings safety and strength to our families.
To the women of my village, to ICSEE Tanzania, and to every mother, daughter, and grandmother who will breathe easier: we are walking this journey together.
And we are just getting started.
This project is more than just technology. It is dignity. It is health. It is pride.
Fostering new leaders
Project impact extends beyond specific life improvements. This work is fostering a new generation of strong leaders.
Project Manager Kisioki Moitiko says this about leadership:
- A leader has to be good in many ways, not only one way.
- A leader has to show the way to other people.
- A leader has to be a creative problem-solver because there are always challenges.
- A leader can always see a better way and knows how to get through.
- A leader treats others well and knows how to work together with others.
- A leader cooperates, involves others, and builds a strong team.
- A leader has to inspire and create other leaders.