The world's perplexing challenge in the 21st Century is empowering people to eradicate poverty. Poverty in its many forms and dimensions undermines, subdues, and diminishes human agency. Research on education and poverty has concluded that what the poor people need most is empowerment. This qualitative case study research focused on the empowerment process as the most important means of eradicating poverty. Using the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) Approach, this study examined "how" and "why" genuine participation in a community-led initiative resulted into the development of personal (psychological) and interpersonal empowerment (PIE/agency or self-determination). Based on six sources of evidence, five themes indicative of PIE/agency were generated: 1) "Umoja ni Nguvu" | Unity is Power; 2) "Ninaweza Kufanya Hiki" | I Can Do This; 3) "Nilishiriki kwa Hiari" | It was My Choice; 4) "Tumeshirikiana! Tumepata Matunda" | We Have Collaborated! We Have Seen the Results; and 5) "Utekelezaji" | Empowerment in Action. Findings indicated that the capacity-building activities of the community-led initiative created an opportunity structure with social contextual conditions that simultaneously nurtured and satisfied community partners' innate basic psychological needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy; hence, their feelings of empowerment. Although more work is vital, these results firmly support using the SDT Approach as a systematic and equitable, universal measure for examining the empowerment process, qualitatively. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]