Empowering the Poor, Inc. (ETP) is the brainchild of its founder, president and chief executive officer, Darius Coulibaly.  Darius was born and raised in a poor and rural environment in Côte d’Ivoire and quickly became familiar with the despair and frustration endemic to individuals and communities struggling to survive.  Images of children needlessly dying in parents' arms because of the lack of access to healthcare, safe and clean water, education, and insecticide-treated bed nets cannot and will not be forgotten.

Darius’s frustrations with African governments’ inability and lack of commitment to combat poverty grew as he did.  Standing over seven feet tall, Darius’s height symbolizes the towering problems that overtake sub-Saharan Africa, a region so rich in mineral and natural resources yet so destitute.  African governments are largely incompetent and ineffective in responding to the challenges of malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, education, clean and running water, and countless other problems.  Decades of foreign aid and more than 2.3 trillion dollars sent to Africa have failed to provide holistic solutions to Africa's conundrum.

Diseases run rampant among the poor, debilitating and confining them into the vicious cycle of poverty.  Every thirty seconds a child dies from malaria in Africa and an estimated 1to 2 million people die every year from this preventable and curable disease.  Each day, 9,000 Africans are newly infected with HIV and 12.3 million children have been orphaned because of AIDS.

As a teenager, Darius vowed to help alleviate poverty across Africa and the developing world. He transferred his frustration into a quest for understanding and solving Africa's plight. Driven by passion for poverty-related issues, social justice, international development, and human rights, Darius pursued and obtained a Master's degree in economics with a concentration in economic development at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, where he completed his undergraduate studies as well.

Through education and personal experiences as a poor child, and witnessing poverty in the United States, Darius realized that poverty is not a curse, nor caused by “lack of luck,” as many may think.  Darius believes that poverty is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that is present in every corner of the world.  For Darius, the question has always been about what and how to best combat poverty and alleviate the burden of the most vulnerable.  Darius strongly believes that the solutions to Africa's rampant poverty lie not in grand economic theories or complex econometric models, but in the hands of the individuals who have suffered through the daily struggles.  Foreign aid along with Africa's debt cancellation will not effectively address the complex nature of poverty in Africa, because of the lack of inputs and feedbacks from the poor and accountability to the poor.

Darius strongly believes that empowering the poor to self-reliance versus providing handouts is one of the most powerful tools of poverty alleviation.  Empowerment places the poor in the driver’s seat of their own future, and helps restore self-confidence, hope, and dignity.  Empowerment works in both the poorest (sub-Saharan Africa) and wealthiest (United States) region of the world.

Armed with that firm belief, Darius Coulibaly founded Empowering the Poor, Inc. (ETP) in December 2005, a Fredericksburg-based nonprofit and 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to empower poor communities to self-reliance with dignity in the United States and sub-Saharan Africa through culturally tailored and integrated educational, healthcare, and microfinance programs.

Using a bottom-to-top paradigm, Empowering The Poor, Inc. is currently working in Fredericksburg, Virginia with the underprivileged youth, Tonhon and Danané, Côte d’Ivoire, and Princes Town, Ghana. Through the generosity of ordinary citizens and the dynamic partnership of corporate, faith-based communities, schools, and universities, Empowering The Poor, Inc. will continue to fulfill its mission.  We, Empowering The Poor, Inc. believe that when one or millions of people live in abject poverty the selfhood of our human family is denied.  Conversely, when one or millions of children, women, and men are empowered to self-reliance, the essence of our humanity is restored.