International Collaborative

The Power to Improve Lives

Sat, 24 Oct 2026 19:56:08 +0000

Create it; teach it: pass it on to others

Hello again from Tanzania. I have been thinking about the many different ways our work takes form today.

It all started very simply, really. Read below to see how the goals of those early days connect with Project work today.

With this newsletter, I wish to share our happiness in seeing our spirit and the structure of this work growing. Through the years it has been expressed in new and different forms, all with the power to improve lives.

With appreciation,

Twende!

Robert Lange
July 2026

The originating questions

Nearly two decades ago, our work started with these questions:

Can we provide an efficient stove that gets the smoke out and fits the Maasai women’s way of cooking in their small unventilated houses?

How can we achieve the goals of improved health and reducing the amount of wood required?

We dedicated ourselves to creating hopeful solutions to these challenges.

We identified the first homes to receive the stoves and installed them.

Our three-part work

The structure of this work is straightforward:

Choose the goal: the life improvement to achieve
Identify the people to be served: the target
Activate the people (actors) who can realize the goal for the target

Even when the program was in its simplest form, the identity of the targets and the actors was intermixed and complex. For example, some women who were the recipients of the stoves (targets) also took on the role of stove installers (actors).

From the beginning, the women helped to ensure that the stove design fit their needs and would actually improve their lives. Their collaboration increased the endurance and relevance of the entire Maasai Stoves & Solar Project.

So, while identities were fluid, the three parts stayed real: goal, target, actors.

Our work now takes many additional forms. These include new collaborations with Tanzanian comrades, who also lead the work. The impact grows here in this country and beyond. And our three-part approach continues to permeate the work throughout.

Maasai Stoves spreading to Rwanda

One of the most interesting examples of the transition and evolution of this work took place in Rwanda, where it continues today, totally independently.

Some years ago, my son Russell visited us in Tanzania. When he returned home to California, he gave a talk about the stoves and our work here.

Among the people in his audience were those interested in eye health in Rwanda. Listening to the talk, they realized our stoves helped women avoid severe eye irritation from smoke.

At their invitation, we went to Rwanda to demonstrate the stove. As a result, a Rwandan eye health program set up their own firebox manufacturing.

Having followed our stove redesign process, they now manufacture a very good version of our Model Four firebox, pictured above. The Rwanda project shows that our stove-based life improvement effort is complete, and can be implemented by others as a successful independent initiative.

Adaptation and expansion through Restore

We are very proud and excited about another way our work has manifested in a new form, while integrating the same three-part approach.

Early this year, I wrote to you about the beginning of our work with the Restore Project.

The Restore Project combines good implementation with innovative training. The German Seventh Day Adventists use funds from the German Government to pass money on to us to support their Project. Here is how the Restore Project collaboration works:

The goal is to replace open fires in homes with stoves, and to electrify with single-home solar systems
The target is homes in eight villages that the Restore Project has prioritized in Monduli and Babati districts
The actors, the implementors, are a wonderful combination of our strongest supervising staff with a team of new participants who have become expert solar installers

Instead of International Collaborative providing hands-on installation for the new villages, the Restore Project asked us to organize a training program to develop these valuable skills for new people. For me, this demonstrates a very welcome adaptation and expansion of the work.

A great collaborative event

Together with Restore, we recently held a special event attended by seventy women at our Fodder Factory in Kigongoni. They came from four villages in the Monduli District that are part of the Restore implementation.

Each woman received solar equipment to take home for installation by the newly-trained experts and International Collaborative supervisors. The installers are ready to add electrification to the women’s homes where the new stoves were recently installed.

We are impressed

We are impressed and proud of what others are able to do, expanding on our work. We are happy to see our ideas, innovations, and home and health improvements spreading. The basic idea is clear: the freedom and creativity of others is powerful and so very welcome.

Create it, teach it, use it, share it, and pass it on to others. Collaborating with you gives us the power to do this. Thank you!

Your generosity benefits the entire community

All this is possible because of your generosity and collaborative spirit

For your $50 gift, a family settlement receives 200 trees to plant.

Help get the smoke out! Your $160 gift means a mom and her kids will breathe better in their homes.

Contribute $1400 to install a micro-electric grid for an entire settlement.

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Significant Growth: Irrigation, trees, and climate change

Brian Bahia — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:47:48 +0000

As we awaited dry weather, some initiatives were on hold. Now they’ve resumed, and I am happy to tell you about recent actions. From the time we began these projects, we’ve aimed to develop approaches to drought-proof farming to sustain rural life, even as weather becomes increasingly difficult. Exploring new…

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A Boost Along the Way

Brian Bahia — Fri, 09 May 2025 16:56:22 +0000

Dear Debra, Greetings from Tanzania! Sometimes development work follows a set plan. But other times, opportunities appear when we become aware of a new hardship or challenge the people are experiencing. It is then a creative response can arise. And there is a wish to take action. This is possible…

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Annual Appeal 2024

Brian Bahia — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 16:12:13 +0000

Dear Debra, In the Maasai community, the people hear the call for collaboration loud and clear. Together, we take a creative, flexible approach to making life better. If homes are healthier with stoves and solar, why not make the water safer too? If herders can adapt to diminishing rainfall, why…

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Audacious Action Africa

Brian Bahia — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 18:23:25 +0000

How a daring Maasai leader and an American physics professor organize to improve life in rural Africa Meet Kisioki Moitiko, ICSEE project manager and Dr. Robert Lange, ICSEE founder. Come to talks in the Boston area, San Francisco/Stanford, San Diego, Laguna Nigel, Annapolis/DC, and New York City, with details to…

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It’s Better with Trees

Brian Bahia — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 18:22:37 +0000

I am in the States for two weeks in August to be with family, returning to Arusha later in the month. In mid-October of 2024 Kisioki and I will be coming to the various cities in the state to speak about the ICSEE. Our tentative schedule is posted below. If…

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Smart Farm

Brian Bahia — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 14:45:22 +0000

The work Mesha is doing is intensifying. She’s organizing women into groups for resource sharing and business development in collaboration with the Global Fund for Widows and with dedicated ICSEE funds. Basic stove and solar work will get a boost from a new collaboration with our friends, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in…

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Nature Conservancy Collaboration Updates

Brian Bahia — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:21:32 +0000

Can a rain-based, livestock-based economy survive when changing climate means the traditional livestock practices won’t work anymore? Indigenous communities are held in high regard for their understanding of the nature in which they live they. However, when nature changes, what is to be done? We must not hesitate to share…

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Global Fund for Widows Collaboration Updates

Brian Bahia — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:06:18 +0000

As the need for organizing women for power and independence intensifies, The Global Fund for Widows (GFW) and ICSEE Tanzania have created a new collaboration to make even greater efforts possible. Over the years, together with the GFW, we organized 19 groups of 25 widows in Maasai villages. Later on,…

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Climate Change & Diversity

Brian Bahia — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 11:56:16 +0000

Rain-based economies are in a very difficult position. To have a stable economy focused on livestock or agriculture, there must be weather stability, including reliable rainfall. As a result of global warming, there is persistent bad weather in many places, including the Maasai lands. Within the Maasai communities, we are…

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