AAPDEP Projects

Well for Farm Irrigation in Zimbabwe

Country: Zimbabwe

Location: Southern Africa

Partner Organization: Ujamma Youth Farming Project Established in June 2005, UYFP is an African youth-led farming cooperative that has secured a 100-acre plot of farmland in the city of Gweru under the Zimbabwe government's land redistribution program. UYFP's mission is to empower African youth through gainful farming initiatives so that they are able to demonstrate the essential skills necessary to function as life long productive citizens of Zimbabwe's agrarian reforms.

Project Start Date: November 2007 (Phase 1: Resource Development & Project Design)

Project Summary: AAPDEP has taken on a project to construct a 50m deep borehole (pressurized well) for irrigation of a 25-acre section of farmland owned by the Ujamma Youth Farming Project in Gweru, Zimbabwe.

Analysis: For more than ten years now, the people of Zimbabwe have been forced to endure severe hardship due to the hypocritical economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country from the US, EU, World Bank, IMF and others in response to the Zimbabwean government's land redistribution program. This program was implemented in order to resettle landless Africans on land illegally occupied by white settlers whose ancestors stole it by the force of the gun during the colonial era. Currently, Zimbabwe has an unemployment rate of around 80%, suffers with the highest rate of inflation in the world, and has been hard hit by drought and lack of funds for farming initiatives. AAPDEP's participation in this borehole project will help to support the efforts of UYFP to provide valuable training, employment, and of course produce to the people of Zimbabwe.

Skills Needed: Engineering and Well Building

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Clean Water for African People in Sierra Leone!

Country: Sierra Leone

Location: West Africa

Partner Organization: Africanist Movement
Formed in 2001, the Africanist Movement is a mass organization based in several West African countries whose goal is to forward a united, liberated Africa whose resources benefit the masses of African people everywhere.

Project Start Date: January, 2008 (Phase 1: Travel to Sierra Leone for Project Assessment & Community Training)

Project Summary: AAPDEP's African Corps of Engineers, Scientists & Healthcare Workers will build community-sized rainwater harvesting systems in the capital, Freetown, as part of its "Clean Water for African People" Campaign that is working to improve the amount and quality of water accessible to Africans in Sierra Leone. Rainwater harvesting is a simple yet effective means of capturing, storing and filtering rainwater. It is a technique that has been effectively used for centuries to provide clean water to communities throughout the world.

Analysis: Access to clean water is a fundamental right of every human being on Earth. However, African people throughout the world, and especially on the continent of Africa itself are denied this right daily as millions are forced to rely on polluted streams, rivers and hand-dug wells to meet their water needs. In Sierra Leone only 26% of African people are able to obtain safe drinking water. This lack of clean water contributes to the overall poor health experienced by Africans in this diamond-rich country. AAPDEP will help to positively impact on the water situation in the country that causes tens of thousands to die yearly from treatable water borne diseases and where the average life expectancy is only 39 years.

Skills Needed: Expertise or good working knowledge and hands-on experience in rainwater harvesting, water purification, well-building and ecological sanitation (in order to expand the work of the clean water campaign)

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Community Health Workers Training in Sierra Leone

Country: Sierra Leone

Location: West Africa

Partner Organization: Africanist Movement

Project Start Date: January 2008 (Phase 1: Travel to Sierra Leone for Project Assessment, Trainee Identification & Community Meetings)

Project Summary: AAPDEP is organizing African doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals to travel to Sierra Leone in order to implement a community health workers program that will train local Freetown residents to treat and prevent waterborne diseases.

Analysis: Africans in Sierra Leone have virtually no access to decent healthcare and often times must travel long distances to receive care at inadequately staffed and overall substandard clinics. AAPDEP's community health workers program will help to alleviate the suffering of Africans in Sierra Leone as a result of the imposed healthcare crisis by training local Freetown residents to treat and educate others on how to prevent the emergence and spread of water-borne diseases like cholera and dysentery.

Skills Needed: Healthcare professionals with expertise in the treatment of waterborne diseases.

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Community Farming Project in Sierra Leone

Country:Sierra Leone

Location:West Africa

Partner Organization:Africanist Movement

Project Start Date:January 2008 (Phase 1, Travel to Sierra Leone for Project Assessment, Initial Land Clearing & Community Meetings)

Project Summary: AAPDEP's African Corps of Engineers, Scientists & Healthcare Workers Agricultural Team will be working to turn a large plot of land in Lunge, Sierra Leone into a community farm that will produce onions, groundnuts and maize for community consumption and sale.

Analysis: About 66% of Africans in Sierra Leone engage in subsistence farming, a type of farming in which almost all the produce is used to feed and support the farmer's family, leaving little or no surplus for selling. Most are forced to live on less than $1 a day and lack the tools and access to other farming resources necessary to improve the yield and quality of what is produced. Africans with expertise in farming, soil science, agribusiness and other related areas will travel to Sierra Leone from various parts of the world in order to build a large community farm that will produce high quality food, provide employment for local residents and raise resources for the important work of the Africanist Movement.

Skills Needed:Farming, Soil Science, and Agribusiness

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