Empowerment is central to our mission at Maendeleo. We design and implement initiatives that are aimed at destroying the barriers that prevent people from getting out of the vicious cycles of poverty and violence. But we never want to create unnecessary dependency on us. We strongly believe in the power and strength of communities to drive change from within. Thus, our contribution is to help individuals and communities to help themselves better, addressing their own challenges and work towards sustainable solutions
We invest in people, equipping them with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to take control of their own destinies. Whether through education, training, or access to financial opportunities, we empower individuals to realise their full potential and contribute to the growth and prosperity of their communities. By providing support and fostering leadership at the grassroots level, we aim to empower the key stakeholders, actors and communities to break out of these vicious cycles.
Our ‘empowerment’ value is contextual, meaning it is based on a deep understanding of the challenges in their context. In this regard, our approach to empowerment involves capacity-building; resourcing; and strategic partnership-building.
Our empowerment is often targeted at building the capacities of critical actors and stakeholders in the community. This usually involves empowering them with bespoke knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary for positive behaviour change towards the desired state. The actors in this case can be individuals or institutions.
We empower African communities by mobilising and providing them with the resources needed to set in motion the required transformative processes to resolve their challenges. Financial, technological and material resources are key here.
At Maendeleo, empowerment also involves investing our efforts in helping the individuals and communities we work with to develop, strengthen and maintain strategic partnerships and support systems. We believe this is important as it is essential to not only prevent deterioration to former undesirable conditions but also to catalyse the transformative process and ensure the most value in the newfound progressive conditions and systems. This is important for the sustainability of our initiatives and is at the core of our