PA April Gulotti is Making an Impact on the Global Water Crisis

Through The Maji Movement, Gulotti is providing clean water to Tanzanian families and educating U.S. youth about this critical issue

September 2, 2025

By Jennifer Walker

In 2015, shortly after completing her undergraduate degree, April Gulotti, PA-C, moved to Peru for a year to work with MEDLIFE, an organization that provides opportunities for college students to volunteer at free healthcare clinics in Latin America and Africa. There, along with working on the healthcare team, Gulotti had several conversations with providers and staff about the global water crisis—interactions that would have a major impact on her future endeavors.

“It was one of the topics that seemed to come up time and time again, especially because we were often treating waterborne illnesses in younger children,” said Gulotti, who is currently the supervising chief PA for 10 advanced practice providers, a mix of PAs and NPs, in the outpatient OBGYN unit at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. “It was so frustrating because the illnesses would be preventable if communities had access to clean water. I wanted to do something about it.”

Gulotti went on to found The Maji Movement to provide clean water for people in Tanzania, Africa. Since 2020, the nonprofit has donated 500 biosand filters, economical water filtration systems that can provide clean water for 20 to 30 years, to Tanzanian families. They have also partnered with about 20 U.S. schools to educate students of all ages about the global water crisis and empower them to support the issue through fundraising efforts.

[See Gulotti and other PAs who go beyond on AAPA’s new Nationwide PA Impact Map!]

The Maji Movement allows Gulotti to make a global impact, even as a full-time provider and new mom whose life is based in the U.S. “As PAs, we have a desire to help the world, but we can’t necessarily travel across the world,” said Gulotti, who is also committed to supporting her patients during their women’s health visits in the States. “But it’s also possible for PAs to help in other ways that still have an effect on health. That’s exactly what The Maji Movement does by providing potable water for individuals, which in turn allows for healthier lifestyles and prevents illness.”

Starting an Independent Fundraising Project
After her year in Peru, Gulotti started an independent fundraising project. Through donations made by her family, friends, and even her elementary school, she raised $3,000, enough to purchase 30 biosand filters for families in Moshi, Tanzania. This type of support is critical in the country, where 58 million people—an astounding 88%  of the population—lack access to safe water.

For her filtration vehicle, Gulotti chose to use biosand filters—tall containers filled with sand and gravel that cost only about $100 each—because of their affordability and long-term effectiveness. “The filtration process is all-natural. That’s why these filters are so cost-effective and last for so long,” said Gulotti, adding that the price of the filters also covers the fee of the local technicians in Tanzania who install them. After buckets of water are poured in the filter, a biolayer—the top layer that consists of good bacteria and microorganisms—eats some of the pathogens in the water before additional germs get trapped in the sand and gravel. Clean water then flows out of a spout on the side.

Gulotti spent a month in Tanzania working with a local organization to build and install the 30 biosand filters, which provided clean water for 240 people. For every family who received a filter, at least one member had to attend an educational workshop to learn about waterborne illnesses and how to prevent them, as well as how to maintain and clean the filter. This turned out to be a pilot project, the beginning of The Maji Movement.

Launching a Nonprofit
Back in New York, Gulotti prepared to start her organization by reaching out to the most caring and driven people she knew—the majority of whom were also PAs—for help with fundraising, content and website development, outreach, and grant writing. She officially launched The Maji Movement during the height of COVID-19 when she was a new PA working both full-time in an OB unit and part-time in a COVID-19 unit.

“I needed a glimmer of happiness and inspiration and something to take my mind away from a lot of the sadness that I was surrounded by during COVID in a medical setting,” said Gulotti, who spent five years as a labor and delivery PA at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

On launch day, The Maji Movement raised $12,000 for biosand filters. The fact that the $100 cost for each filter also covers salaries for local technicians in Tanzania to transport and install them, bringing employment opportunities to the region, is “a huge bonus” for the community, Gulotti said.

Educating Youth About the Global Water Crisis
After her pilot project in Tanzania, Gulotti came back to the U.S. and visited her elementary school in Oceanside, New York, to thank them for their donation. There, she learned that the school had made clean water a global awareness initiative for all students for that year. Several elementary students, who had followed her blog when she was in Tanzania, had insightful questions about the water crisis and the filters. This is when Gulotti decided that education should be a part of her nonprofit’s mission.

“I realized that I wanted to start a nonprofit not just to give people clean water, but also to inspire younger children because it’s the next generation that’s going to continue making the world a better place,” she said.

The Maji Movement works with schools around the U.S. to offer education about the global water crisis and fundraising opportunities. Each school is provided with a 13-unit environmental sciences curriculum—written by an AP environmental sciences teacher for The Maji Movement—that can be adapted to each teacher’s needs and time constraints. The curriculum covers pathogens in the water and waterborne illnesses, as well as how biosand filters and other water filtration devices work. Age-appropriate activities, such as building a replica biosand filter for younger students, are also provided.

“It’s about giving kids the opportunity to learn about how people across the entire globe live and teaching them about the global water crisis for awareness,” Gulotti said. “The fundraising is always supplemental.”

Reflecting on her two career paths, Gulotti—who also started a successful ultrasound training program for labor and delivery PAs at NewYork-Presbyterian—said that the skills she has learned as a PA, from healthcare knowledge and leadership acumen to the ability to communicate with others, have made her a stronger nonprofit founder. She is also proud that her organization offers opportunities for PAs to provide support to people in other countries while still practicing in the U.S.

“It’s a wonderful way for PAs to get involved in global health and still make a difference,” said Gulotti, who hopes to one day offer educational trips to Tanzania for healthcare professionals so they can build and install the filters and help educate local communities about the water crisis.

Jennifer Walker is a freelance writer in Baltimore, MD. Contact Jennifer at [email protected].

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