Edson Mwinami: US-based Pastor’s journey of giving back to rural community in Hai District

Born in Iringa Town to Bena parents from Njombe, Mwinami emigrated to the US to pursue theological studies.

After 14 years of rigorous education, he settled in Atlanta, where he now resides with his wife and four children.

Two of his children were born in Tanzania, while the other two were born and raised in the United States, reflecting the unique blend of his Tanzanian roots and his American journey.

In all his years in the US, Reverend Mwinami has sought to be the bridge between his new country and his motherland.

He has tirelessly pursued ways to contribute to the development of the community back home, recognising that the most effective means of making a lasting impact is by fostering economic growth and initiating transformative projects in areas where hope has long seemed to wane.

He was an integral part of the formation of cooperation and friendship between a church in Karansi village in the Hai district and a church in Atlanta, the friendship that blossomed into a very prosperous initiative that has impacted thousands of residents of the Karansi Community.

The church requested Rev Mwinami to connect them with a local church in Tanzania and explore ways that they could give back, and on their first trip to Tanzania in 2002, Mwinami accompanied them; they aimed to teach the community about leadership, and they held several seminars. In 2004 they went back and did the same.

The Atlanta church members wanted to do more than teach and that’s when Rev Mwinami went back with them to Hai district to explore ways they could cooperate with the Karansi community and have an initiative that would uplift the community economically.

On top of his living room table lies a recent copy of an ‘Asante sana’ magazine, the publication that writes of the amazing accomplishment that they have been able to achieve with their intervention in a now formally structured ‘Ubora’ NGO.

What was just a dream to impact his native land had blossomed into a comprehensive economic and social intervention and investment.

“We have been able to build a school, and children are now attending primary school there. It’s a big campus that was built on land allocated by the local district government,” he said.

“We are now in the process of building a secondary school,” he added.

Mwinami strongly believes in leadership training as a way for a community to lift itself out of the deep pit of poverty.

They have partnered with other churches in Tanzania to offer leadership training and seminars to do just that.

He has always been captivated by stories of how the US, now a global powerhouse, emerged from its destitute past—driven by the unwavering resolve of strong leadership.

In conversations with American elders, he often hears stories of how the US was built by European immigrants and transformed into the nation it is today.

They frequently attribute this success to strong leadership, citing examples such as the severe water shortages that plagued the country in its early days—a challenge reminiscent of what many villages in Tanzania face today.

Americans viewed that challenge as an opportunity and soon a few heads came together and found a way to solve the water problems and, in doing so, offer a service that would make them earn a dollar from that.

“Not everyone wanted to dig a well to get water, so those who dug them sold water to the rest of the community,” he said.

Water was initially drawn from wells and distributed within neighbourhoods, a modest beginning that eventually evolved into the sophisticated utility systems we see today.

It all started with one visionary individual and the backing of strong leadership—a foundation upon which American capitalism was built.

Mwinami shared this story to highlight the fact that most of our problems in Tanzania are actually business opportunities if we change the lens through which we view situations.

Once a poor community, Kiransi has flourished all by leadership training and small economic projects in the village that turned the gloomy community into a striving, joyous community.

All this was initiated by one Tanzanian man in the US who never lost his love for his country. ‘The Bible says it’s better to give than to receive,’ he said.

All development in a society begins with ideas. Rev Mwinami continued to elaborate that if you live in an environment and you are not satisfied with the current living conditions, it’s the ideas that will pave the way for solutions.

“Development is not materialistic; it doesn’t begin in getting things but having tangible ideas one can work on,” he said.

He remembers one man in the 1970s in the Iringa region who had an idea to use bamboo sticks to replace the expensive metal pipes used in supplying water to households.

He reasoned that bamboo rods are hollow, inexpensive, and in plenty of supply in Iringa, so the community would save a lot of money by doing that. The idea grew, and he received a lot of support; they even tried it, and it worked.

But later on, he received a lot of discouragement from people who resisted change. When this happened and he saw his vision killed, the man fell into depression and alcoholism.

Rev Mwinami questions how many of the good ideas our people in Tanzania have not implemented simply because people don’t see the bigger picture.

Ubora, the nonprofit organisation that is now headed by Dave Burgess, has now grown into an important part of the Karansi community.

They have exchange programmes where young American students visit the community in Karansi and teach university graduates how they can start and sustain small entrepreneurship projects.

Rev Mwinami has observed that graduates who complete Ubora’s training programmes come out with clarity and a renewed way of thinking when it comes to tackling their everyday challenges.

The need to get employed and look for jobs is replaced with a driven sense of finding a solution to community problems and earning a living through that endeavour.

“Where they saw unemployment, they now start seeing opportunities, potential networking and some even seek to further their education, and that’s where the blessings begin,” he attested.

Many countries have used their Diaspora communities to be catalysts for scientific and economic development.

Superpowers like India and China fully utilise their Diaspora population to gain much-needed information and knowledge for their countries’ benefit.

Rev Mwinami urges Tanzania to look beyond remittances as the sole avenue for benefiting from its diaspora, advocating for broader strategies to harness the potential of Tanzanians living abroad.

With the government’s projection of attracting more than $1.5 billion from the Diaspora, Mwinami sees that Tanzania can also gain through collaboration, like the projects they are doing in Hai, but also gain from the ideas that the diaspora has that can transform the country way beyond just remittances.