AAPDEP Conference Calls on Skilled Africans to Build the African Corps of Engineers, Scientists & Healthcare Workers (ACESH)!

Uhuru (Freedom)!

The All African People's Development & Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) is calling on African students, scientists, engineers, electricians, health care professionals and other skilled Africans with expertise in health, nutrition, water purification, waste-water treatment, well-building, renewable energy technology, ecological sanitation, agriculture, construction, fundraising, web design, graphic arts, and other related areas to participate in the first annual AAPDEP Conference at the "Uhuru House", the newly renovated International Headquarters of the African People's Socialist Party in St. Petersburg, Florida on September 22nd and 23rd, 2007.

The purpose of this conference is to: 1)consolidate technical teams that will collectively make up the AAPDEP African Corps of Engineers, Scientists and Healthcare Workers (ACESH), 2)build fundraising, logistics and outreach committees that will support the growth and development of AAPDEP, and 3)determine timelines for upcoming health, clean water and farming projects in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. ACESH will serve as technical advisors for AAPDEP projects, organize training sessions, develop proposals and participate in putting AAPDEP projects on the ground.


The AAPDEP African Corps of Engineers, Scientists and Healthcare workers (ACESH)
will provide skilled Africans an opportunity to organize our skills
for the development of African communities everywhere.

Participation in the AAPDEP African Corps of Engineers, Scientists & Healthcare Workers is open to skilled Africans who unite with the fact that the vast resources of Africa are the birthright of African people everywhere and must be used to benefit the masses of African people wherever we are located. Volunteers must also unite with AAPDEP’s mission to improve the living conditions of African people as part of an overall strategy to organize Africans into a process that will forward a united, liberated Africa.

To register for this historic Conference, or for more information, please contact us at any of the following:

AAPDEP
c/o Dr. Aisha Fields
Project Coordinator
P.O. Box 454
Normal, AL 35762

(256) 348-6478
aisha@developmentforafrica.org
www.developmentforafrica.org


Please read on for more information about the All African People's Development & Empowerment Project.


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What is the All African People's Development & Empowerment Project?

The All African People's Development & Empowerment Project is an organization of the African People's Socialist Party (www.apspuhuru.org). AAPDEP has as one of its primary goals to organize the collective energy, skill and expertise of Africans wherever we are located, and to include others with skills who are willing to work under the guidelines of this project, in order to develop Africa and African communities throughout the world.



The most important features of AAPDEP that distinguish it from other organizations are:

It is spearheaded by Africans for Africans.
It is organized by the highly trained and skilled sector of the African population who would otherwise use their skills to advance development in their respective countries of residence that often times are engaged in the exploitation of Africa.
It is NOT charity – the most popular and accepted way of dealing with the objective conditions in Africa - as this approach demoralizes Africans everywhere, the recipients as well as other African people who witness it. AAPDEP is designed to train, develop and empower the Africans who participate in its projects to duplicate and run the programs we develop. It is a revolutionary strategy aimed at transforming the dismal reality of Africans everywhere and forwarding true self-determination for African people.
Current AAPDEP projects focus on renewable energy electrification, rainwater harvesting, well-building, water purification, ecological sanitation, farming, prosthetics and community health workers training.

Conditions Imposed on African People Worldwide Make AAPDEP Necessary

With an abundance of agricultural, mineral, oil and other wealth, Africa is the richest continent on Earth! Nevertheless, African people world wide - from Brooklyn to Brazil, Guinea to Guyana - are forced to live in abject poverty. This imposed poverty is rooted in an attack on Africa that manifested itself as the forced dispersal and enslavement of African people, colonialism and current day neo-colonialism. As a result of this attack, African people everywhere have been separated from our resources and each other while our land, labor and vast natural wealth are being used to build Europe, the US and other imperialist nations.


Though Africa is the wealthiest continent on earth in natural resources…


Africa’s stolen resources have built the wealth and power of the US and Europe…


at the expense of the health and prosperity of African people everywhere
who are forced to live in abject poverty.

According to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) 2002 Annual Report on Integration in Africa, 90% of the continent’s resources are systematically expropriated, leaving a mere 10% of Africa’s “trade” occurring internally. That Africa’s resources continue to serve as the pedestal upon which the economies of the US and Europe rest, instead of being used to meet the needs of African people ourselves, can be clearly seen in the examples of Senegal and Gambia. Although Senegal literally surrounds Gambia, trade between the two countries is minimal. The majority of Senegal's resources are routed to France, while those of the Gambia mainly enrich the UK.

This same phenomenon can be seen in the expropriation of Africa’s intellectual resources as well. Though African people everywhere suffer from a lack of nutrition, decent health care, clean water, housing and the other necessities of life, the most skilled sector of the African population - African scientists, engineers, health care professionals and others - often use their skills to ensure that health and development abound in imperialist countries at the expense of the health and development of African communities everywhere, even African communities within the imperialist centers themselves. For example, according to Africa News of April 2, 2003, there are reportedly more Sierra Leonean doctors living in Chicago (U.S.) than in all of Sierra Leone, where the lack of appropriate healthcare contributes to one of the highest infant (158 deaths out of 1000 live births) and maternal mortality (1800 deaths out of 100,000 births) rates in the world. At the same time, African children in the city of Chicago itself are twice as likely as white children to die before the age of one.

African People Need Self-Determination-- political independence, access to and control over our vast material and intellectual resources for the benefit of the masses of our people!

The All African People's Development and Empowerment Project was developed by the African People's Socialist Party (www.apspuhuru.org) as part of a strategy to completely overturn the contradictions we face as African people that have led to our inability to enjoy the health and prosperity that are our true birthright. We understand that the underlying cause for the crisis that exists in the African world is the imperialist exploitation and purposeful underdevelopment of Africa and African communities everywhere by the US and Europe (and increasingly Japan and China) who effectively control our resources (wealth). We know that this exploitative relationship can only be overturned by a cohesive worldwide movement of African people that has as its objective to forward true and lasting African self-determination-- political independence, access to and control over our vast material and intellectual resources for the benefit of the masses of our people.

For example, if Africa's diamonds alone, a resource that generates about 60 billion dollars a year for the US, Europe and Israel, were used to benefit African working people, there would be more than enough resources for people-led sanitation and clean water systems for African communities everywhere. There is enough hydro(water) potential in the Democratic Republic of Congo to meet almost all of Africa's electricity needs, yet Africa has an average electricity rate of only 2-20%. What is needed, then, is African workers having control of our immense wealth to ensure that it is used to develop our communities the way that we see fit.

The All African People’s Development & Empowerment Project offers African scientists, engineers, health care professionals and other skilled Africans an opportunity to finally organize our skills in an effort to address the problems of lack of healthcare and overall development in African communities everywhere because of imperialism. Through the active participation of African people from throughout the world and of various ages and skill levels in every aspect of the work, AAPDEP will empower the masses of African people to understand that collectively we can overturn all of the contradictions that have been imposed on our lives. Certainly not a superficial attempt to solve the problems of African development, the programs of the AAPDEP are part of an overall strategy developed by the African People’s Socialist Party to organize the masses of African people into a movement that addresses the fundamental, underlying cause of our misery. This approach to our work puts African people on a trajectory toward self-determination and is in complete opposition to the charity model adopted by most other organizations.

Charity is not the solution!

Thousands of organizations, church groups and government agencies around the world operate charity programs of one kind or another throughout Africa and in African communities worldwide, yet the material conditions for African people worldwide only worsen. This is because organizations that solicit “pennies a day” to feed an African child, white wealthy celebrities and middle class couples adopting African children, and white or African missionaries setting up schools and orphanages in impoverished African communities do nothing to address the underlying cause of the poor health, lack of clean water, food, decent sanitation and other conditions imposed on African people and at the same time feed into the false notion that Africa is poor and hopeless.

At best, charity programs serve as band-aids on third degree burns. At worst, they are self-aggrandizing efforts to gain attention and accolades or are outright attempts by imperialist-funded foundations or corporations to appease African people while stealing our resources. Celebrities like Bono, Madonna, and Oprah Winfrey and all the organizations that daily engage in charity projects in African communities are not working to overturn the fundamental contradiction faced by African people, and therefore offer us no solution whatsoever to our real problem.


With skills and given access to our own resources,
African people will feed ourselves.
The solution to Africa’s problems is not for others to
take our children, but for us to have control of our own
resources to enable us to raise our own children.

Projects

AAPDEP will help to provide clean water to African people throughout the world.

The All African People's Development & Empowerment Project is in the process of organizing a number of clean water, renewable energy, farming and health care projects in West and Southern Africa. Some of the countries where AAPDEP projects may begin in 2007 include Sierra Leone, Azania (South Africa) and Zimbabwe.

AAPDEP projects are not limited to the continent of Africa! Our goal is to organize projects in African communities throughout the world.

Community Training

AAPDEP seeks to improve the objective conditions that exist in African communities everywhere while simultaneously empowering African workers and poor peasants. In order to do this, training sessions are organized to transfer the technical skills necessary for community members where projects are developed to participate in the implementation, maintenance and duplication of AAPDEP's water, electricity, sanitation, construction, farming and health projects.

Support AAPDEP!
Donate Today!

As you can imagine, it requires a considerable amount of resources to put AAPDEP projects on the ground. Your donation of money, diamonds, equipment and other resources is an active step towards transforming a world where Africa’s stolen resources generate tremendous wealth for others while the masses of African people live in poverty and misery.

A list of equipment needs can be obtained by emailing AAPDEP at info@developmentforafrica.org.

Checks or money orders made out to “AAPDEP” can be sent to the address below.

Contact Us!

For more information about the All African People's Development & Empowerment Project, to register for the AAPDEP Conference or to volunteer to share your energy and skills, please contact us at any of the following:

AAPDEP
PO Box 454
Normal, AL 35762
(256) 348-6478

We look forward to working with you to build these projects that improve the lives of African people everywhere as part of a strategy to win African Liberation in our lifetime!

One Africa! One Nation!
Forward to the AAPDEP Conference!

Aisha Fields, Ph.D.
AAPDEP Coordinator