Member Profile: African Empowerment Project

African Empowerment Project (AEP) serves communities in Africa by creating opportunities for income development, improving access to quality education, and promoting the advancement of health and wellbeing. By working closely with a Community Based Organization, we are identifying the specific needs and pressing issues in Mnang’ole, a remote village in Tanzania, and involving the community in developing solutions. When these initiatives are complete, our project development model will be used as a template for future villages across Tanzania and beyond, each with their own specific needs.

AEP's first water project will be to provide safe, clean, affordable drinking water for the residents of Mnang'ole and to establish a sustainable community run system to maintain a well. In preparation for the project, AEP recently completed a solar lantern project in the village, the secondary purpose of which was to free up household funds so that community members will be able to contribute to water fees when the well is ready and water is available. AEP distributed a solar lantern to every home in the village in April 2011, eliminating the need to buy kerosene for lanterns and freeing up an average of $93 (equivalent of) every year. This is almost half of the household income.

AEP was founded by Beth Fitzgerald following a three-week service trip to Bagamoyo, Tanzania in the spring of 2009. Despite her preparation and understanding of the region, it was her first-hand experience that drove the passion she found to seek a way to effect greater change in Africa and empower the people of Tanzania with opportunities to attain their basic human needs. Following months of personal reflection and business feasibility research and analysis, Fitzgerald founded AEP in December 2009. Fitzgerald then returned to Tanzania to begin the research and development of the organization. This brought her to the village of Mnang’ole, Tanzania where she discovered a rural farming community of 800+ people, living in extreme poverty and sub-standard living conditions that include: lack of any health care services, lack of power sources, a contaminated water source two hours from the village, sub-standard schools, unstable farming conditions, and the inability of children to attend school for various reasons.

The village of Mnang’ole has now become the focus of AEP’s five to ten year plan for implementing and nurturing community run development projects to empower the people of Mnang'ole to lead healthy, sustainable lives. AEP's project development model for Mnang'ole will serve as a template for future communities. AEP's projects focus on three main objectives: Income Development, Access to Quality Education, and Health and Wellbeing.