In a small African village in Tanzania sits the O’Brien School for the Maasai, ready to educate the future.

All it took was the heart, passion and confidence of one woman — the one they now call “Mama Kellie.”

Hinsdale resident Kellie O’Brien and her daughter Heather Bacon spent Christmas 2006 at a convent in Sanya Juu, Tanzania, determined to help others. When they met Gabriel, a leader in the small Maasai village of Sanya Station who had been praying for a school, their lives forever changed.

As O’Brien and Bacon spoke of their intention to build a school, the men in the village began to cry.  When the two women learned that the children only ate once a day they agreed they would feed them as well, and with that the women in the village began to cry.

From there, O’Brien and Bacon sketched out a plan for the first three classrooms and returned home with a purpose.

During the next year, O’Brien reached out to family and friends for support as she continued to send funds to the Maasai. By January 2007, three classrooms were built, and O’Brien returned to Africa to see what else needed to be done.

When the African women, who raise their children in pitch dark dung huts with dirt floors, asked O’Brien to teach them something she told them she would return with a project for them.

Not only did O’Brien go on to build a women’s center, but in the last year they also finished three more classrooms, a library, and small clinic with a visiting doctor. The Americans also have introduced games to the Maasai by adding a basketball net and soccer field as well as promoting personal hygiene with a hand-washing station and soap.

Tricia Faison, O’Brien’s neighbor with four children at Monroe, has been actively involved with her friend’s dream for the Maasai. The students have sent over Beanie Babies, donated games and collected seeds so the Maasai can have a prairie garden like the one O’Brien started at Monroe years ago.

“It’s so important to have our children touch and feel it, really understand that there are people all around us that need help and how good it is to give back,” Faison said. “The earlier you embed that in your children, the better people they become.”

Faison went over with her family in January, where she was introduced to fire made by hand, villagers who walk five miles to get water and the lack of electricity, which leaves the men, women and children shaving their heads and eyebrows with a straight edge razor. Faison said the Maasai are the happiest people she has ever met. Their appreciation for life has taught an invaluable lessons for the Faison family such as happiness stems from having God and family and each other.

From installing shelves Faison’s husband had built in his garage, to teaching the women how to make curtains, O’Brien and others worked side-by-side with the Maasai to create the best stocked library in all of Tanzania.

Last month, O’Brien and Faison delivered two huge containers to the Maasai, with everything from school desks to dirt bikes to thousands of books. O’Brien said they have one more container with a solar oven being sent this summer.

While she spends her days running English Gardens Ltd., O’Brien is fully committed to changing a village and creating a future for the Maasai. They had 240 kids in the school last month and continue to fine tune the quality of education.

“I think about them every single day and every night I pray for them,” O’Brien said. “They truly are part of my heart now.”