2023-10-09T05:32:28-04:00 2022-12-31 990EZ 2022-01-01 821693564 OLIVESEED FOUNDATION % Barbara Makraz OLIV 6509068548 4142 BAKER AVE PALO ALTO CA 943063907 Barbara Mackraz PRESIDENT AND CEO 2023-10-09 2022 2023-04-26 12:10:37Z X https: www.oliveseed.org X X 192175 X 191754 421 0 0 0 192175 193813 12000 3000 524 8952 218289 -26114 43753 -535 17104 X 53753 27442 0 0 53753 27442 10000 10338 43753 17104 X Oliveseed develops programs and resources in literacy education and environmental stewardship for youth in rural Kenya and Morocco. Among our activities we develop high-quality libraries science labs and learning centers for rural public schools in need; and we sponsor writing competitions for rural teens and publish anthologies of their writing in book form. During the Covid-19 lockdown we also provided emergency food relief for communities we work with. Oliveseed Kenya Charitable Trust In 2022 we funded the establishment and operations of Oliveseed Kenya Trust a registered community-based charitable trust with headquarters in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya where we do most of our work. Our long-time Maasai partner community leader Amos Kipeen is the full-time general manager. This new entity can hold land and other property perform local banking and transactions and access charitable grants available in the region. The small team provides primary support for the conception planning implementation and local management for most of our projects in the region typically where project grants do not provide for project management staffing. Annual operations of the entity and costs of fieldwork in support of multiple projects came to $52,685. Separately the startup costs including a purchase and outfitting of a robust vehicle came to $34,533. 86218 X 87218 Maasai Mara Public Schools Initiative Talek & Aitong Kenya In 2022 we greatly expanded our Public Schools Initiative in the rural Maasai Mara region of Kenya building upon our earlier successful programs at rural public schools in Morocco. In the Mara we focus on the communities living alongside the Maasai Mara National Reserve and the community-owned wildlife conservancies. The towns here are Aitong Talek and Sekenani. This year we developed high-quality Libraries at Aitong Primary School and Maasai Mara High School and continued to add to the libraries we developed earlier for Talek Primary and Mara Girls Leadership School. Each library has 2000 books for curriculum enhancement and pleasure reading a nature corner with conservation materials relevant for the Maasai Mara laptops with eKitabu East African content and learning games and puzzles. We partner with Text Book Centre in Nairobi the largest supplier to schools and libraries in Kenya to source at a discount; and we engage trainers to run capacity-building workshops at each school we work with. These libraries are at rural public schools that had never had libraries or any other enrichment resources before and they are transforming the schools providing access to quality relevant learning materials to over 4000 students a year. Each library becomes the school's Learning Center and a hub for reading and extra-curricular enrichment programs. We are expanding this program to more schools in 2023. We also began work on a Science Lab for Maasai Mara High School in 2022 and completed it in early 2023.. Like our Libraries this is the first Science Lab at a public school in the area. Students will be able to complete the biology chemistry and physics experiments required for university studies in Kenya and the school is now in a position to compete with their wealthier urban counterparts. As part of our assessments at the 15 rural primary schools in the region where we work we look at priorities on what is most needed for each school. At Olemoncho Primary the most under-resourced school in the area the first need was decent latrines rather than libraries. In 2022 we built a sanitary latrines building for the school. Because Olemoncho has students with mobility disabilities we included sanitary facilities for students with disabilities the first time this has been done at a public school in the region. Also in 2022 we continued to build education partnerships in the region growing our relationship with Text Book Centre Wildlife Clubs of Kenya and Maasai Mara University and adding a new partnership with Africa Publishing Innovation Fund APIF. APIF funded some of our library projects separately while we managed and implemented the projects. 31390 X 31390 Oliveseed Women's Work Center Lemarti Village Maasai Mara Kenya In this region of the rural Maasai Mara most adult women are not educated and have no marketable skills or economic opportunities. To address this need we are establishing a Women's Work Center in the village of Lemarti between the towns of Talek and Sekenani with income-generating enterprises for women from 15 local families. We are providing training supplies sales channels and the work space. With this support women will make beadwork arts to sell at neighboring safari camps and sew clothing and other items to sell to the community and to safari visitors. Among the sewn items will be school uniforms and sanitary kits for girls to help keep children in school. We began this program in early 2022 with a community assessment and found immense interest among women in working and making an income to help their families. When asked what they would like to do with their income the #1 response was to pay school fees and keep their children in school. In 2022 we purchased land for the Oliveseed Women's Work Center; designed and built the structure with workspace office and selling shop; built a water structure for pumping from the nearby river; and raised funds for solar supplies and continued development in 2023. We held a groundbreaking event in the fall with the 15 families in the cooperative with the blessing of community elders to bestow success on the program. The Center launched in early 2023. 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 and a chance to replicate it in more locations. Future plans for this Women's Center include delivery of the women's family milk each day to the regional Refrigeration Center by electric motorcycle. Currently women walk 4 to 5 hours a day to deliver their family's milk by carrying one 10-liter bottle on their back. This project will enable women to deliver their milk more quickly and easily in 20 minutes and to transport 4 bottles instead of 1. This provides another income-generating activity as the women sell their milk to the Refrigeration Center and can increase the quantity sold each day. 26367 X 26367 Clean Water Enterprise Aitong 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 2022 we began development of a Purified Water Facility that will offer clean drinking water at low cost to the whole region. A family near the town of Aitong donated 10 acres of prime land to us in an accessible location along the county road for a variety of community-benefit purposes. The first program on this property is our Purified Water Facility named Lemek Hills after the mountains behind the property and source of the water. In early 2022 we conducted hydrogeology analysis of the area to determine the best place to source clean abundant water from the underground aquiver. Over the course of the year we developed a borehole water storage and solar-powered pumping system to successfully bring clean water to the surface in partnership with the U.S. organization Global Water First. We also designed a building for a bottling and distribution facility. The whole operation was completed in early 2023 with the bottling facility in place and the filtered water certified by the Kenya Water Authority. We will provide low-cost drinking water to a community of over 20,000 people and sell water to safari camps and other businesses in the area in an eco-friendly operation with large reusable bottles. The earnings from the sales of water to camps and businesses will sustain the Water Facility and will help fund our future education projects. 20250 X 20250 Global Literacy Initiatives Morocco Kenya & U.S. In Morocco we have a successful legacy program of over 40 English libraries at public schools in rural areas. In 2022 we expanded this program to a nationwide Short Story Competition for rural youth. We had begun this Competition in 2020 during Covid for our network of schools and it was so popular that we decided to grow it into a larger program open to students from all over the country. In all our library projects in Morocco and Kenya our mission is to inspire a culture of reading in places that never had this opportunity before. In accordance with our philosophy that The reader is father of the writer we see this story program as a natural evolution of our libraries. In 2022 we encouraged young Moroccans to write creative stories incorporating themes from their native folktales and we engaged teachers judges editors and education supervisors in Morocco and the U.S. to collect and review the stories. At the end we published an anthology of the best stories. This program is inspiring literacy and creativity among youth especially from Amazigh Berber communities people too often marginalized and not able to share their voices with the world. We put the published anthologies in libraries and schools not just in Morocco but also in the U.S. and Kenya and we share them widely in electronic form. We are now growing this program to multiple countries with exchanges of creative and indigenous stories. Early in 2022 we published a second edition of a collection of essays about life at home during Covid written by young Maasai in Kenya. We also held an event honoring the young writers with national Kenyan media in attendance. In the U.S. we are sponsoring a Cultural Library at the Kwiyagat Community Academy a charter primary school created and managed by the Ute Mountain Utes tribe in southwestern Colorado. In 2022 we began the project by sending library books for the two youngest grades with another grade to be added each year. Most of the materials are Native American literature we purchase with the advice of the school staff. 8292 X 8292 Manyatta Library Ololchura Village Maasai Mara Kenya A manyatta is a traditional Maasai village of small earthen homes typically without power or light. We had the idea of developing a small solar-lit library and study center inside a manyatta something that had never been done before. With the blessing of the local elders and support of a whole community in the spring of 2022 we built a Manyatta Library in the village of Ololchura as a pilot project. We constructed the building in a prime spot given to us next to the sheep and goat pen and we added to the library over the course of the year. The Manyatta Library was immediately wildly successful embraced by parents and children alike and it has been full of young people reading every afternoon and evening since the opening. It is the only lit building in its village. In a new development at the end of the year the teacher managing the Manyatta Library began running preschool classes for the youngest children in the village something else that has never been done before in a Maasai manyatta. The Manyatta Project is not only a library but an experiment for exploring a host of ideas boosting education and bringing it just steps away from where people live 4184 X 4814 High School Scholarships Maasai Mara Kenya We have worked with Mara Girls Leadership School since 2017 and since 2021 we have been adding public schools to our initiatives. Most of these are primary schools ending in 8th grade. We found that most students at these schools do not progress to secondary high school even if they are best students in their primary school because their families cannot afford the school fees. In Narok County only 11% of students enroll in secondary school and the number is even lower for girls. We started a scholarship program in 2021 and expanded it in 2022 to include more students. We are now sponsoring 7 students to go to academic high schools in Kenya for 4 years including all fees room and board books and other expenses 6 of the students are girls. Each student has a sponsor in the U.S. 6349 X 6349 Maasai Mara Sustainability Center Aitong Maasai Mara Kenya The Sustainability Center is a community resource center to be built over time on 10 acres of land donated to Oliveseed Kenya just north of Aitong. Eventually we will establish a Public Library here first in the region a Community Education Center and other facilities. The first project on this site is the Clean Water Enterprise described above. In 2022,we received the donation of 10 acres. We then developed the site by surveying the land and registering ownership planting over 1000 indigenous trees building high-quality fencing with a gate around the whole 10 acres and constructing a road into the site for access to the Clean Water and other facilities to be added over the next three years. 9133 X 9133 193813 BARBARA MACKRAZ PRESIDENT AND CEO 42 12000 HASSAN SAADAOUI BOARD CHAIRMAN 1 0 KAREN BERNER SECRETARY 2 0 ROBERT CRAIG TREASURER 3 0 KATHERINE BECKWITH BOARD MEMBER 1 0 false false false false false 0 false true 10000 false false CA JAMES MACKRAZ 4142 BAKER AVE PALO ALTO CA 943063907 6502835510 false false false false false false false false false false false NONE NONE X 74989 32529 80307 113642 191754 493221 0 0 100 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 74989 32529 80407 113642 191754 493321 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 493321 0 0 0 0 421 421 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 421 421 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 74989 32529 80407 113642 192175 493742 1.00 1 0.00 0.00 X RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED Mackraz Family Founder's Family Startup-Up X 10000 10000 false true true 10000 Part I, line 10 | Grants And Similar Amounts Paid:, Amount:| Oliveseed Kenya Charitable Trust, $87218| Maasai Mara Public Schools Initiative Talek & Aitong Kenya, $31390| Oliveseed Women's Work Center Lemarti Village Maasai Mara Kenya, $26367| Clean Water Enterprise Aitong Maasai Mara Kenya, $20250| Maasai Mara Sustainability Center Aitong Maasai Mara Kenya, $9133| Global Literacy Initiatives Morocco Kenya & U.S., $8292| High School Scholarships Maasai Mara Kenya, $6349| Manyatta Library Ololchura Village Maasai Mara Kenya, $4814| Part I, line 16 | Other Expenses:, Amount:| Bank and wire fees, $1106| Travel airfare, $1925| Software, $972| Accounting fees, $3666| Miscellaneous items less than $500, $1283| Part I, line 20 | Explanation:, Amount:| Prior period adjustment, $-535| Part II, line 24 | Explanation:, BOYAmount:, EOYAmount:| , $, $| Part II, line 26 | Explanation:, BOYAmount:, EOYAmount:| Short-term loan, $10000, $10000| Credit Card Balance, $0, $338|