Our mission is to transform Burundi from the bottom-up and top-down. Bottom-up addresses symptoms such as poverty, sickness or hunger, whereas top-down transformation tackles the root causes. United Christians for Change and Development (UCCD) has invested many years in bottom-up transformation, impacting thousands across Burundi through education, evangelism and humanitarian work. In recent years, they have expanded their efforts to focus on leaders.
“Why target leaders? All the times when God wanted to do great things for communities or nations in history, he called a leader.” Isaiah, UCCD’s leader, is warm, gentle and softly spoken, but when he shares his dreams for the country, or when he stands before a crowd preaching, you can see he has the heart of a lion! His dreams are not idle vision, but strategic ambitions for national transformation. “Nothing changes without leadership, nothing is corrected without leadership. All the good things we are enjoying now, and in future are a result of leadership, but all the bad from history or in the future is also down to leadership.”
“Ignorance is the cause of the poverty we live in, an ignorant leader cannot be fruitful. For this reason, I recommend GLS to all the Police officers of Burundi. We need these teachings!”
Colonel Nduwayo Aloys, Police Chief of 4 provinces.
UCCD’s growing profile has brought Isaiah and his team clout, which they are using for good. They have hosted Global Leadership Summit (GLS) events around Burundi for the past few years. Founded in the USA, the Global Leadership Network operates their flagship Summit and facilitates local pop-up events worldwide by partners. In the past year, UCCD ran over fifteen GLS events and seminars, with over 15,000 attending, including special events for the Police force and schools! “We are training government leaders, universities, church leaders, police and army.” Hosting GLS events is a strategic way to attract these key leaders, notably the Speaker of the House of the Senate, Emmanuel Sinzohagera and Aimé Kanyana, the national Ombudsman of Burundi. She said, “I hope all leaders will follow the lessons we have learnt…we trust we will continue to see a great impact in all domains of leadership so we can build the Burundi we desire.”
“Attending GLS, we realise that there are so many things that we don’t know which can help us to be effective leaders.”
François, academic Director, University of Gitega.
Another area of strategic impact is church leadership, organising meetings with various denominational leaders to offer support and training. Relationships between different church traditions can be strained in Burundi, so gathering them for the sake of unity is an important move. At one such event, Sinzohagera commented, “As iron sharpens iron, so the spirits of the pastors who have attended it sharpened each other. The weak and discouraged were encouraged. My conviction is that if such retreats continue, the churches of Burundi will experience true revival!”
Creating an environment for leaders to thrive is a great way for Isaiah to use his growing profile as a force for good. “I’m not ready to be in politics but by God’s grace I can influence them with good leadership and we can change the country.”
