FEATURE
Beyond Safari: Pioneer Hospitality College Nurturing Skills & Changing Lives in the Maa Community Laurine Koech
Exemplary success story a MEC alumni sharing first-hand experience with the director after landing himself a job at Kichwa Tembo lodge
A glimpse at the savannah and adjacent Acacia woodland and one would hardly imagine the presence of Maasai Educational Centre, a hospitality training college which was the first of its kind over a decade ago. The Style Hotel School is stylish indeed. The school-cum-lodge is located at the Oreteti Mara Lodge in the 32 | NDEGE NEWS |DECEMBER 2023 - FEBRUARY 2024
Maasai Mara National reserve. It was established in 2011 and has trained over 500 graduates to date. The institution boasts of a 95 percent employment rate in the over 50 lodges across the Maasai Mara National reserve. They aim to change the livelihoods of the community at large by providing a quality education in the hospitality field at an affordable cost.
This then is the 11th year of graduating students and both Mariska Appelman and Adri Hillegers, the co-founders of The Style Foundation, were there with me as I partook in so many proud student moments on behalf of Air Kenya. Mariska Appleman nicknamed “Nashipai’, meaning happiness, by the local residents, is a philanthropist from the Netherlands,
