Recent Highlights

THIS IS HOW YOUR INVESTMENT IN EDPOWERMENT IS WORKING TODAY:

Community storefront with 'Wings for Confident Women' sign

EBIC (EdPowerment Business Incubation Center) is now home to a cohort of apprentices learning practical skills in cookery, carpentry and tailoring. At the same time, 7 paid one-year interns apply what they learned to build the Center's own income generation. All are led by a dedicated staff of 10 educators and skilled craftsmen/women.

What further distinguishes the Center is the IT/Digital Literacy/Computer Training that it provides to both the apprentices and this remote district's community members. Today, literally every type of individual - student or professional - can access the Internet here as they learn skills to promote their own careers and income-producing ability.

This is opportunity.

Everyone who comes to the Center can radically change his or her future.

Cookery: Our interns prepare many orders now coming in from local outlets using the Center’s new industrial oven and mixer. Cost = $1,725/$588. Our snacks taste the best!

Carpenters working in a rustic workshop.

Group of people talking outside pink building.

Carpentry: Apprentices and Interns share new designs and techniques, distinguishing the Center’s products from the competition.

Classroom lecture with projector and laptops.

Instructor guiding students using laptops in classroom.

Computers: New HP computers and personal instruction separate the Center’s classes from those at any other school or business in the area. Our internet access is the best possible. In Tanzania, the population pays internet providers on an ongoing basis for data use. This greatly limits the ability of most villagers both to learn and market their skills or products on the internet. The Center helps all who use its services to overcome this obstacle to advancement.

ELINAMI

… represents the wide net of our sponsorship program. Growing up in unspeakable poverty and abuse, she was brought to EdPowerment years ago, enrolled at the KIWOCE Open School (operationally funded by EdPowerment), and after gaining her O level secondary school certificate, sent to a vocational school for hairdressing. Braiding and hairstyling is extremely popular in local society. After completing this program, she joined a salon and thrived. However, turbulent 2025 elections in Tanzania resulted in her employer closing the salon. Elinami has since served customers out of her rented room.

This spring our local staff worked with Elinami to calculate the costs of setting up her own business. This is EdPowerment: we walk with each student – whether he or she becomes a doctor or hair stylist – for the best possible outcome. With our seed money and coaching, Elinami os continuing to build a sustainable livelihood. Cost for the first stage of investment = $1020.

Pictured above: Elinami (right) and Gladness, a young Massai woman who escaped marriage threats at home and is now earning a Certificate in Clinical Medicine, works through requirements for Elinami’s hairdressing business uring my February visit.

ONE PRINTER

Five years ago, local authorities built the Namayani Primary School to serve a scattered, remote population consisting primarily of Maasai families. Namayani now serves roughly 500 students with 7 paid teachers and 3 volunteer teachers. No books, classroom teaching tools, internet: just a newer building, some desks (shared by 2 to 3 students) and a few hard-working educators.

Each month the headmaster, Joseph (a remarkably personable and positive human being), was taking multiple trips into a town about 10 miles away to print required level tests. 500 students @ 7 subjects Tsh * 400 Tsh for a two-page test * 8 times a year = 11,200,000 Tsh or $4,392 annual cost. Government support is minimal. Families have no resources. So there are no additional learning handouts.

We recognized that the most significant way that EdPowerment could help the teachers and students immediately was to provide a printer. The day I left Tanzania in February, we purchased a high volume black and white printer. Yesterday our team delivered it, with some other learning assists. Cost = $550. This is the thoughtful, intentional aid that EdPowerment delivers.

Children happily holding up school supplies.

Teacher showing students how to use printer.

TUMSIFU

EdPowerment’s Saturday Boys and Girls Club has given local teens such an important outlet. Not only has it provided needed structured recreation - it also provides fundamental skills in areas such as electricity, carpentry and agriculture. Is there a lasting impact to these Saturday activities?

To find out, we visited Tumsifu, who graduated in 2024. Since then, Tumsifu has built two sheds (above) for his home’s sanitary and agricultural use – and set up an ingenious system for an outdoor speaker using wires and other materials found in garbage dumps.

Tumsifu will become our newest sponsored student: taking a 3-year VETA (vocational) course in Domestic and Industrial Electrical Installation. Cost = $150 in start-up supplies and $450/yr in school fees. With this diploma, he will be able to earn a good income that changes his life and that of his mother and siblings.

THESE STORIES DEMONSTRATE THE TANGIBLE WAYS WE USE YOUR DONATIONS - AND HOW MUCH EVERY DOLLAR MEANS!

The youth population is exploding in countries such as Tanzania. A recent article in The East African stated that at least 1/3 of Tanzania’s working youth are extremely poor, roughly 70 percent moderately poor. Formal jobs constitute only 5% of new jobs in Tanzania, while an estimated 92% of the East African region’s youth currently work in the informal sector. In this environment every young person that we empower with serviceable, problem-solving skills achieves a victory.

EdPowerment creates family. We all help each other. Here, Gladness, our sponsored student, talks to Maasai students at Msitu Wa Tembo, the government secondary school where we conduct academic skills training. Many families in this culture still oppose education, seeking instead to marry daughters at an early age. While our staff tries to change attitudes, the best way to reach these girls is through one of their own, in this case, Gladness. May her example and words inspire many more young women to fulfill their potential.