The Foundation for African Empowerment

The Foundation for African Empowerment (FAE) is a registered nonprofit sustainable human development organization founded in order to contribute towards tackling extreme poverty in Tanzania. Its mission is to improve lives of the extreme poor people in the rural communities in Tanzania through promoting access to water, education, healthcare and livelihood opportunities. Through promoting access to education, water, healthcare and livelihood opportunities in the rural communities where extreme poverty is severe and pervasive, we make a lasting impact on the ground one community at a time. We implement our programs through an integrated development approach focusing on four critical sectors of water, healthcare, education and livelihood opportunities which we believe are synergistically crucial in helping to sustainably break the vicious cycle of poverty in the rural communities. Moreover, our approach involves other stakeholders such as community members, local governments, development partners and the private sector. We work toward building a society free of extreme poverty, inequality and injustice.

Ending extreme poverty is a global concern as stipulated in the UN Sustainable Development Goal #1, yet no international consensus on the guidelines for measuring it. However, everyone is called to participate in ending extreme poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. We at FAE take extreme poverty as multidimensional and encompassing much more than income poverty measured by living below $1.25 a day as per 2005 Purchasing Power Parity. People who are living in extreme poverty do not just suffer from lack of income but also suffer from considerable barriers preventing them from enjoying their fundamental human rights including access to basic social services such as healthcare, education and water. Therefore, we at FAE are concerned with broader quality of life of the extreme poor in the rural communities to include more equitable access to assets and basic socio-economic services and meaningful engagement and participation of all people especially the extreme poor in the decision making and development processes.

Why extreme poverty is the most urgent humanitarian crisis of our time and what it means to live in extreme poverty?

The world has set an ambitious goal to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. Looking at the numbers, it is estimated that 1.6 billion people in the world are living in extreme poverty. Out of those 1.6 billions, 29% of them live in Sub Sahara Africa. In Tanzania, over 80% of the poor and the extreme poor live in rural areas.

Numbers are mainly for the academic understanding of the situation. To better understand what it means to live in extreme poverty, Imagine…

• Being unable to meet your daily practical needs.
• Being treated with no dignity and respect.
• Being unable to access basic social services such as health and education.
• Being unable to access clean drinking water.
• Being excluded in decision-making and development processes.
• Being unable to access capital and training to start a business of your dream.
• Being unable to live in adequate housing, hygiene and sanitation.
• Being marginalized, stigmatized and overlooked.

And the list goes on and on…

Our Vision

A society free of extreme poverty, inequality and injustice.

Our Mission

To improve lives of the extreme poor people in the rural communities in Tanzania through promoting access to education, water, healthcare and livelihood opportunities.