SILVERDALE — The Silverdale-based Maasai Women’s Education and Empowerment Program USA was awarded the Kitsap Peninsula Global Humanitarian Award Dec. 4, at the 2011 RESULTS Benefit Luncheon.

The event was held in the Kitsap Convention Center in Bremerton. Nearly 200 people attended.

Organization president Barb Stark received the award.

The Kitsap Peninsula Global Humanitarian Award was instituted by the Kitsap chapters of RESULTS in 2009 to honor outstanding contributions to the alleviation of hunger and poverty that are being made by individuals and organizations in our community. The award recognizes exemplary, innovative and strategic work in international settings in economic opportunity, education and health, with special attention to projects that promise to become self-sustaining.

This is the third year the award has been presented.

The Maasai Woman’s Education and Empowerment Program was founded in November 2005 by a group of Maasai women in Kenya. These women hoped to empower girls and women within their Maasai community through education. Funding for their project began in December 2005, when Loanna and Jon Day of Silverdale founded the U.S. chapter. The U.S. chapter helps to offset the cost of secondary school, post-secondary education, women’s empowerment classes, and business and community leadership training.

RESULTS is an advocacy organization committed to creating the public and political will to end poverty. RESULTS is nonprofit, non-partisan and non-denominational.