Abigael Simaloi Pertet (Class of 2016, Kenya), a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program Alumni, first learned about EARTH University through the Maasai Girls Education Fund, an organization whose mission is to support girls’ education and empowerment and who had sponsored her schooling. In 2012, an EARTH graduate gave a presentation about EARTH, and in that moment Abigael fell in love with the idea of what the institution represented.
Throughout her schooling, Abigael had learned the importance of giving back. She felt called to make a difference but wondered how she could do this in a meaningful way. The more she learned about EARTH’s educational model, the more she saw the overlap with her own passions and goals. She resonated with EARTH’s commitment to community engagement and environmental conservation. This is what she wanted to do. Studying at EARTH would allow her to achieve both her personal and professional goals and create lasting impact.
Since graduating, Abigael has been working to promote community empowerment through a variety of organizations. She first worked at an organization called The Maa Trust, which empowers communities through wildlife conservation. Inspired to empower young girls in her community, she then returned to the Maasai Girls Education Fund.
Abigael is currently working for the Mara Elephant Project, where she conducts research focused on reducing human-wildlife conflict. The mission of the Mara Elephant Project is to protect elephants and their habitats across the Greater Mara Ecosystem. In her role, Abigael empowers farmers to be economically resilient while simultaneously utilizing practices that protect wildlife. For example, she gives farmers the tools they need to grow crops that are not consumed by wildlife. She attributes her agricultural knowledge, her passion for finding innovative solutions to challenges, and her research skills to her time at EARTH.
Abigael now finds herself working at the nexus of food security, research, and conservation. She is also completing online studies at the University of Edinburgh, where she is presenting her dissertation on crop selection to reduce wildlife conflict. She would like to continue working along these lines and develop an organization that improves women’s livelihoods in her country. Abigael sees kitchen gardens as one area with high potential for impact in enabling women to contribute to food security in their communities. By empowering women to build these gardens—areas where vegetables, fruits, or herbs are grown for domestic use—they would have better access to nutritious food and a better understanding of its production. Abigael has always been passionate about women’s empowerment, and now, as a mother, she understands what it takes to put nutritious food on the table.
Abigael’s time at EARTH equipped her with the technical and interpersonal skills that enabled her to give back to her community through her career. During her four years at the University, Abigael immersed herself in on- and off-campus communities. Starting her first year, she and her roommate began doing volunteer work in the neighborhoods surrounding the University. They regularly volunteered at a youth shelter, and during holidays, they accompanied other students to volunteer and spend quality time with community members around Costa Rica. EARTH’s encouragement to give back pushed Abigael to get to know these people and places in a more meaningful way.
Abigael found the richly diverse on-campus community to be one of the most impactful parts of her EARTH experience. “I was able to sit with people from different cultures, different views of life, different experiences that helped me understand my own life,” she notes. The tight-knit community at EARTH fostered a familial sense of belonging. Abigael reflects that the humility and graciousness among the students and faculty made her feel that everyone was equal, despite their diverse backgrounds. She also learned how to manage a farm, lead groups of people, and work directly with communities. Abigael sees EARTH as a formative place that goes beyond theory and prepares people with skills, motivations, and the goal to give back to their communities.
Abigael is very grateful for the opportunity to attend EARTH University as part of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program. “I am thankful to the Mastercard Foundation for enabling me to be the person that I am today and for changing not only my life but the life of my family and the people that I work with.” She wants to keep using her voice so that others will know that an investment in someone’s education, like the one she received, can have a ripple effect to improve people’s lives.