Barb Mackraz

Co-VP - Narok, Kenya

​Barb Mackraz is a longtime member of Neighbors Abroad and a lifelong advocate for literacy, environmental stewardship, and cross-world friendship. She serves as co-VP of our Friendship City program with Narok, Kenya, the capital city in the wildlife-rich region of the Maasai Mara. She is excited to be bringing a piece of Africa into Palo Alto's web of international relations.
 
Barb is founder and executive director of Oliveseed Foundation in the U.S. and co-founder of the grassroots nonprofit Oliveseed Kenya Trust, with an all-Maasai team. She began her nonprofit work in 2014 and never looked back. In the Maasai Mara, Barb and team develop libraries and other educational resources for villages and the most underserved rural schools, run a women's work center with sustainable livelihoods for women, built a purified water facility to provide clean low-cost drinking water, and capture indigenous stories. In rural Morocco, Barb has also developed English libraries with teachers and Peace Corps volunteers in over 30 locations, primarily Amazigh communities, and her program there has evolved to a nationwide Short Story Competition for rural youth, with published books.
 
Previously, Barb had a long career as a software product designer in Silicon Valley, with a good part of it in speech recognition, and before working in tech was an editor for Princeton University Press. She has a BA in European history from University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford, where she wrote a thesis on the mythical Nile in early modern cartography.
 
Through Neighbors Abroad, Barb sees great possibilities for sharing knowledge, stories, experiences, and friendship across all our city relationships; and Narok adds a dimension with an indigenous community that lives closely with nature. Barb lives in Palo Alto with her husband, and they raised their daughter here. When not traveling, Barb especially enjoys hiking and the natural beauty of the Bay Area.

You can contact Barb at ​[email protected].