By Michael Ainomugisha
When Arnaud Gahimbare walked into his first community hour at Uganda Christian University (UCU) in 2004, it was to help him settle into campus life. Instead, he found himself sitting through a speech he could barely understand.
“I remember the first community hour I attended; Prof. Stephen Noll was the speaker. I understood absolutely nothing,” he recalls.
For the young student from Burundi, where French is widely spoken, the language barrier was so overwhelming that it nearly shattered his confidence during his first days at UCU.
“I was born in Burundi, raised there, and studied there. Coming to Uganda was a new adventure for me.”
Gahimbare had joined UCU to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology after a family friend, the Rev. Clement Ninziza, introduced him to the university. Burundi was preparing to join the East African Community, and his family believed learning English would open new opportunities for Gahimbare.
“At UCU, I would study harder than everyone else. Others would study the material. I would study the language first, then the material,” Gahimbare says.
He thus turned his daily life into a classroom. He listened to English songs, watched movies to improve his listening skills, memorized new words every day, and pushed himself into conversations, despite his broken English.
“One person told me, ‘Now this is English. Later on, he asked for my notebook because he saw the impressive marks I was scoring,” Gahimbare says.
His classmates also became part of his support system. He remembers friends like Gift Asiku and Rebecca Asiimwe helping him understand lessons and adjust to campus life. By his second year, Gahimbare had gained enough confidence to join the Mustard Seed worship team, something he says helped him improve his English even faster.
In 2006, he became one of the first non-Ugandan students admitted into the Honours College at UCU. The opportunity, he says, placed him in an environment that challenged him academically and personally. The college aims to enhance the development of leaders with excellence in academic, spiritual, socio-economic spheres, as well as equip them with community leadership skills.
“There is something the Rev. Canon Dr. Samuel Opol said,” Gahimbare recalls. “‘We have standards to maintain and goals to achieve.’ That statement changed my life.” Opol was part of the faculty at UCU, as well as the coordinator of the Honours College program.
Beyond academics, Gahimbare immersed himself in leadership and ministry. He served as chairperson of the International Students Association at UCU and also led the Mustard Seed worship team. At one point, the international student community had members from more than 10 African countries and other continents.
“I saw the world opening; I saw possibilities, opportunities and growth,” he says.
His final year at university became one of the most demanding seasons of his life.
He had taken up an ambitious IT project using Oracle systems software, tools mostly used by large companies and institutions. Months into the project, his laptop crashed, wiping out his work.
“I started afresh, sleeping for fewer hours because I needed to beat the deadline.”
The determination paid off. Before graduation in 2007, he approached Prof. Patrick James Mangheni, who was the dean of his faculty, and showed him the software system he had built. Impressed by the work, the dean connected him to an IT company for a job interview.
On June 1, 2007, Gahimbare secured a job before graduation.
His graduation ceremony remains one of the most emotional memories of his life. His father, despite severe illness and months spent bedridden after treatment, travelled from Burundi to attend the function.
“He told my mother one day, ‘I want to see my son graduate; then I will be ready to die,’” Gahimbare says.
“I still remember the excitement of my parents because they had sacrificed for a good cause,” he says.
Nearly two decades later, Gahimbare’s journey has stretched far beyond Uganda.
After working in Uganda for two years, he returned to Burundi to support his family before later working with the United Nations in Burundi and South Sudan. In 2015, he joined the East African Community as head of IT at the East African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania. Today, he serves as the head of IT at the East African Community Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency based in Entebbe, Uganda with projects across east and central Africa.
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