For the Good

03/08/2026

This International Women’s Day as our hearts remain heavy and too aware of the devastating harms being inflicted on women around the world, we also celebrate the many women of For the Good whose dedication, commitment, and passion change girls’ lives for the better in ways large and small everyday. We are grateful to be part of an organization that creates spaces where women are not just welcome but truly leading the way in nearly all aspects of our work. Here are just a few of their smiling faces.

Photo #1: Founder .anderson joins in an icebreaker game of Hokey Pokey during our first-ever day in the field in Kenya as an organization, October 2015. 📷 #2: Supervisor Christine Mpoe with her mom in Olderkesi. Christine beat seemingly insurmountable odds during her own childhood to stay in school, ultimately earning a university degree. She now oversees our programs in Olderkesi and continues to rescue girls from early marry in her personal life, a project she began while in college. During any given school semester she and her husband Joseph often house up to 8 children at a time who are not their own to keep them in school. 📷 #3: Longtime Loita region Team Angaza volunteer Ann Muntati has helped three different villages near her own open new ECD preschools, creating new access to education for several hundred children and counting. She often walks hours several days a week to do this work. 📷 #4: Stellah Koshal, Mercy Lemian and Elizabeth Mateu are just three of our rapidly expanding team of Team Angaza volunteers in the Olderkesi region who are now creating similar impact in school enrollments, pad distributions and health information as our longtime team in Loita. 📷 5: Longtime Programs/Operations Manager Millicent Garama, whose masterful facilitation work and huge heart have long served as the North Star to our work. ̇nternationalwomensday

03/04/2026

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” - B.B. King

Hello from Naikarra! These sweet faces are 14 of the 17 children newly enrolled at Bright Star Academy ECD preschool by our Team Angaza volunteer Stellah Koshal.

In many regions around the world women and girls have in many ways never been closer to equality —and at the same time never closer to losing it as more and more of the programs and systems developed to protect women and girls get rolled back and start failing. As we head into International Women’s Day this week we want to spotlight just a few of the incredible women on our team in Kenya who are working hard to ensure that Maasai girls keep moving towards equity —not away from it.

Stellah (2nd photo, pictured with two of her children ) is our Team Angaza volunteer for the Naikarra region. She wanted to be part of Team Angaza so she could become a change maker in her community. Sharp, keen and quietly observant, Stellah has already accomplished that goal: She has identified hundreds of out-of-school children in the region of Naikarra where she lives and worked with their parents to enroll them into ECDs and primary school. She also teaches basic sanitation and health and SRHR education to local girls during pad distributions and, late last year, she helped local women in her village organize into an empowerment/ self help group that’s fundraising for local children’s school fees and other needs. Her hope for Maasai girls futures is “to see them finish their education la and realize their dreams.” Last year she had another baby whom she named after out founder .anderson .

03/04/2026

Yes that IS our Executive Director .anderson about to kiss a friendly little chameleon in the mountains outside of Arusha, Tanzania, two weeks ago. Today is so here’s a fun, little-known behind-the-scenes fact: Both our founder (Kayce Anderson) and our communications director (Kate Lapides) were passionate wildlife and conservation nerds as a young women who studied Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder —though a decade apart.

Kayce went on to earn a doctorate in the same field at the University of California Davis and then continued on for a post doc— a long stretch of years when she happily spent an inordinate amount of time hitchhiking around the Ecuadorian Andes chasing butterflies and aquatic insects for her research on declining butterfly populations and climate change. Instead of seeing her background in an entirely different profession as a liability when she leapt from ecology to studying the problems that keep girls from school in Kenya 15 years ago she has always seen it as simply a different type of systems research — and an invaluable asset in that there may be no more important skill in International development work than the ability to listen deeply and keenly observe. “It’s humbling and healthy to remain a learner,” she noted in a 2019 interview in Roaring Fork Lifestyle magazine. “Having a learning mindset is incredibly important in development work, especially in a very different culture. In many ways it suited me well to be in that position because our work with communities is an equal exchange…we learn from each other.”

Kate was one ecology course and a final physics semester shy of her own ecology degree at CU Boulder when the impact of powerful photojournalism and the magic of a black and white print revealing itself in a darkroom tray sent her off on a major detour away from conservation. She headed off to a newspaper internship and later, contract photography for various NGOs + a lot of side gigs but remained ever passionate about conservation and is grateful to be dabbing a toe back in that world through her work with the incredible .

03/03/2026

02/26/2026

We’ve been quiet here on Instagram the past two months— a bit ironically because our U.S. staff has been out in the field in Kenya and Tanzania for much of this time, where we tend to experience a hundred frame-able moments of both incredible beauty and also, too often, heartbreaking pain every day. Often, it feels important to pause before sharing them so we can let their full import sink in and say something thoughtful. A more banal reality is that we’re also usually running around packing each day way too full trying to touch base with too many people and project details in regions where WiFi and network are sketchy. And on this trip also, the continued cruelty our country has been inflicting on lives at home and abroad seems to have left us a bit at a loss for words upon returning home.

The focus of our recent weeks in Kenya was exploring solutions to the severe water scarcity issues that affect several regions where we work and also expanding our Participatory Video (PV) projects, which teach the tools of video and media to people who too often don’t get to control the stories told about their own lives. The hope that is that the ability to share their fuller, truer narratives will reduce the negative consequences that tend to happen when the stories told about them by others are one-dimensional, stereotyped, and limiting.

The PV work our small crew in Olderkesi has been doing to date has been so inspiring to see. The same is true for the learning trajectory of our team in Loita; we spent a joyful week watching their delight as they finally got to shoot with a video camera and hear the magic of a voice amplified through lav mics and headphones during their first official interviews. And we we’ve been struck by how this reclaiming of narratives is — as antidote to the one-dimensional fictions created by others — in this moment in history— not just for Maasai girls who’ve been constrained by historical patriarchal systems for too long but for all of us around the world. Words do matter. Speaking truth to power that’s being misused— whether at the community or global level — is one of the most powerful ways to shift the narratives that harm us all.

12/30/2025

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom experience can instill in us.” - Hal Borland

As we reflect on 2025, we are filled with gratitude that we were able to continue to carry our mission forward in a year marked by global uncertainty — and profoundly saddened by the aid cuts that devastated the programs of so many peer organizations. Like many, we have stretched to respond where we could and worked to help bridge gaps that should never have existed.

Among our highlight reel from 2025 is the chance to finally celebrate the first new classroom built at the key new secondary school in Entasekera (Photos 2 and 3) and another nearing completion in remote Orpalagilagi (Photo 5); health trainings that are already improving outcomes in many of our partner communities; the doubling of our Team Angaza volunteers thanks to a generous grant from ; the launch of numerous women’s merry-go-rounds—community savings groups by many Team Angaza that are now fundraising for their children’s education; and the launch of an innovative video-based program to strengthen girls’ sense of empowerment and spark community-wide social change thanks to the generosity of another longtime partner.

As the year draws to a close, we also wish to honor three extraordinary board members whose service has shaped For the Good in lasting ways. After completing three consecutive terms, Cochran, Barbara Freeman, and are stepping into new adventures. Their grounded leadership helped guide us through a global pandemic, navigate significant government policy shifts in Kenya, and thoughtfully scale our programs in 2023. We are enormously grateful for their wisdom and dedication.

On behalf of every girl whose life expanded because of your generosity in 2025, thank you for believing in—and investing in—our work. We look forward to what we can continue to build together in the year ahead, with wisdom earned, hope renewed, and gratitude from the bottom of our hearts for each of you.

12/11/2025

Borrowing from Shakespeare: We can no other answer “but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.”

To everyone who spread the word, donated, or supported our GivingTuesday and ColoradoGivesDay fundraising efforts over the past week, our most heartfelt and deepest gratitude. You helped us raise nearly $30,000 and earn an expanded generous matching grant of $25,000. This end-of-year funding is truly significant, supporting our ability to plan our 2026 programs and staffing with confidence to ensure we can continue to unlock new possibilities for countless more Maasai girls like Nashipae (pictured here with her daughter Sasha) again next year. Ashe Oleng (thank you) and thank you again.

And… We still have bracelets! These unique beautiful beaded pieces are handcrafted by Maasai mothers in the regions of southern Kenya where we work. They use the income from their purchase to pay their children’s school fees—creating a win-win for education! We will be extending our GivingTuesday offer of the gift of one of these beautiful works of art to anyone who donates $150 or more through our GivingTuesday page -link in profile— through December 17th!! Many colors still available!

12/02/2025

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe

GivingTuesday: A movement to recognize our shared humanity and reimagine the world through a million global acts of generosity and caring. Today is a vitally important day of fundraising for For the Good and thousands of other nonprofit organizations working to create a better world. Find that cause that grabs your heart and do what you can to help make a difference.

If we are one of those causes, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thanks to a longtime generous partner all gifts up to $10,000 will be matched 100%. Donate in the amount of $150 or above and we’ll also send you the gift of a beautiful beaded Maasai bracelet handcrafted by vulnerable mothers in the communities we work. Scroll to see samples of this year’s designs .

Ashe Oleng 🙏
Portrait of Nashipae and her daughter Sasha by For the Good’s Programs Manager

11/26/2025

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

When we first met her in 2021, Nashipae—pictured above with her daughter Sasha—had just finished at the top of her 8th grade class. Her grades won her an invitation to a prestigious secondary boarding school, an incredibly rare honor in her corner of Maasailand. But she was an orphan who had just delivered Sasha days before we met her, and had to give up her spot. Fortunately we had just started our first day secondary school in the village when she delivered— walking distance to her home—allowing her to return to school because she could return home each day to take care of Sasha while she was a baby.

A few weeks ago Nashipae just graduated from high school. She plans to apply to college. Morijo Day Secondary School— the high school that gave her a second chance— has been the highest performing school in the Loita region where we work two years running. Thirty-four students will graduate from Morijo this year— many of them joining Nashipae on her college quest. And Sasha will start preschool in January, continuing the circle of opportunity that began with the generosity of our incredible community four years ago.

We hope you’ll join us this GivingTuesday to keep paying this hope and opportunity on to the next generation of girls in Kenya. Together we can start where are with what we have to do what we can to make a real difference in the lives of girls across the world.

📷1: Nashipae + Sasha, October 2025 Josephat Ole Mashati 📷2: Nashipae, 2021 📷3: Nashipae + Sasha, 2022 📷4: Sasha in 2023 Kate Lapides

11/05/2025

Last month, we enjoyed an insightful conversation with staff and members of , a community of women with hundreds of U.S. chapters that works to learn about, advocate, and fundraise for organizations working on behalf of girls and women around the world.

For the Good was honored to be one of Together Women Rise’s 12 Featured Grantees in 2025. The funding we received from them was transformational, allowing us to expand our small team of four Team Angaza volunteers on the Olderkesi side from four to 15. These volunteers, all high school graduates who are young Maasai women local to the communities they serve, are one backbone of our programs. They persevere through countless challenges in the remote areas they serve to enroll out-of-school children. Over the years, their roles have expanded: They also distribute reusable pads; share knowledge about MHM and basic health to girls; and organize their communities to start much needed pre-schools.

Team Angaza are game-changers, and true lights for their communities, so we wanted to introduce you to some of them. Leah Koisa( 📷 #1) identifed and enrolled over 100 out-of-school children over three months of a recent school term. Ann (📷 2) has helped 3 small villages launch new preschools. Stellah (📷 3) just organized women in her area to start a fundraising merry-go-round to raise money for children’s school fees. Naserian (📷 4) organized two villages to start a preschool M-F a local church and is now working with her own to build one. Mary, Nabaya, and Elizabeth (📷5) just learned video as a tool for social change; Mary will soon be assisting our new coordinator on a small video project educating communities about typhoid.

We love the quote: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And these ladies are truly doing it.

10/23/2025

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
-Former President Barack Obama

Six years ago, in 2019,, Evelyn Sanau, one of our first cohort of Team Angaza, was working hard on her volunteer days to convince local parents in her community of Kitilikini to enroll their children into primary school. After fulfilling her two-year service term with For the Good, Evelyn went to college to earn a certificate in Community Development and launched the Imirishi Women’s Self-Help Group in her village.

Currently comprised of 15 women, the group identifies the most significant challenges for children and women in their community and works collectively to develop solutions. Six years ago, Evelyn was convincing many of these local families that sending children to primary school was the right thing to do. Now these ladies are coming up with their own fundraising solutions to send some of those children to college.

We couldn’t be prouder of Evelyn, the ladies of the Imirishi Group, and our entire staff and crew of Team Angaza volunteers. They truly are stepping up and using their new skills and knowledge to spark the change they seek for themselves and the next generation. They are shining examples of courage, determination, belief, and the power of collective action to transform lives. We are so grateful for all of them, everyday, and the work they do to bring more hope and change to their communities.

10/13/2025

“You have it in your power to make a difference. Don’t give up. There is a future for you. Do your best while you’re still on this beautiful Planet Earth.” -Jane Goodall, excerpt from Jane Goodall’s Final Message to the World, Netflix

Our Communications Director and Naikarra Supervisor met with the quietly dignified and thoughtful Elma, pictured here, on our last day together in the field several weeks ago. Elma doesn’t even know the cost of a school uniform because not only is her family is poor; her stepfather won’t support her because she is not his own child. She has been borrowing a uniform from different classmates each week for several years now so she can stay in school.

Sometimes the stories we hear in Kenya completely break our hearts. During our conversation with on Thursday evening, we learned that they have had over 600 funding requests during their current grant cycle—three times the normal amount— because so much funding has been pulled from programs supporting girls and women around the world. And every one of them is not so different from Elma: A hopeful young person so deserving of a bright future, no matter the circumstances they find themselves in.

“Don’t lose hope…. If you want to save what is still beautiful in this world, if you want to save the planet for future generations, for your grandchildren, and their grandchildren, then think about the actions you take each day. Because a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”- Jane Goodall