 If you had a chance to change one thing in Africa, what would it be? Man, the mentality, you know. I would want people to understand that actually, Africa is the life for, you know, everyone in the world. But for some reason, we've, you know, oppressed ourselves. So the way of looking at things, you know, that would be the first thing that I would change, the way we see things. Our mental way of reasoning, because we are capable, but we don't believe in ourselves. We believe in someone else, you know, our own ideas that we always put them last. This is my second day in Burundi, and the first day that I tweeted, hey, I want to meet entrepreneurs in this country. Everybody was telling me, you need to meet Dr. Jackson. Because he's an inspiration that we all look up to. And I was like, who is this Dr. Johnson? My name is Jackson Nahayo Quincy. I'm 37 years old. I'm a Burundian. I'm a farmer here, lived in North America for most of my life. That's where I did my education in healthcare and decided to come back to Burundi to work specifically to build a hospital and to work in healthcare and quickly realized that there was something that was more important, agriculture and feeding the population. So I decided to go into farming. How many farms, how many different crops are you growing right now? Yes, so the main one, like I said, is soybeans and maize, but we do cassava. We do a lot of things. We do amaranth for vegetables. We do cabbage. We do even chili, hot peppers. We do eggplants. We do bananas on a large scale as well. We grow bananas. And then on animal husbandry, livestock, we do chickens. We do fish, tilapia mostly, and catfish. The best moment in doing what I do has been to see that there is people that are better off, that are, you know, better off today because of my existence. Youth that have earned some skills under their belt. People that are sick, that have been, you know, treated in some of the health centers that I have built in two of our hospitals. The people who have earned themselves employment and are able to sustain themselves, to support their families because we created jobs for them. So we do things slowly. And sometimes our friends come in and say, hey, let's assist, you know, with the project you're doing. Because whatever you do, I first see if there is any good for the ordinary people. If it's beneficial for ordinary people, then I do it. I don't think about me. I think about others first. Is this need there in that community? Then we talk to the community leaders and then we get to work. How do you feel any time you come in here? Well, really, one thing that I was challenged with was when I was thinking of building this here, people were saying, you know, take it to the capital city. You know, there is nothing here. There is no money here. You won't be able to find people to be interested in coming to work here. So in my heart, I was determined to do it. And I said, you know, it's not all about the money that I need, but I want to be able to respond to a need that is not there, to something that is needed. If I see there is need for the hospital because I would always see people that are sick and they just leave them home. So we started out of nothing to build this place. Where do we see Jackson in the next 10 years? Really, I think the question would be where do we see Jackson's, you know, where would we see Jackson's in the next 10 years? My brother, the people of Burundi in the diaspora and at home are telling me that you are an inspiration to them. And I just want to tell you, thank you so much for inspiring your people. Thanks man. What are you doing that everybody is telling me I need to meet you? Like I said, my name is Jackson Nahayu. I prefer just you call me Jackson. I need no titles. I'm a farmer working here in Burundi. Were you born here? Yes, I was born in Burundi. Burundi? Correct. You grew up here? No, I didn't grow up here. Unfortunately, I lost the chance to see my childhood here in Burundi. What do you mean? Well, there was war. As you may have learned, Burundi has got a lot of history of civil wars. So I was one of the victims of that. And in 1993, when the democratically elected president was assassinated, I was only six years old and war broke out. And so, you know, there was lots of fighting. And me and my sister were trying to run just over the river by Congo side. And unfortunately, she got attacked. And she was wounded. Her lungs were punctured. And so, we got to a place. What do you mean by she was attacked? She was shot at. Gun shots in the chest. What were your parents? Actually, at this point, we had left. We thought our parents were dead because the rebels attacked during the war. Our home or our village was all attacked. So we were sort of like, we escaped pretty much. You want your sister to die? Yeah. When we couldn't walk no more, we went to a place where she told me, you know, I can't walk no more. Just run. Otherwise, they're going to come and find you. So the soldiers at the time, the government soldiers at the time were the ones waiting for the people. They're actually the ones that shot my sister. And she couldn't make it across. So I left her there to die. And I tried to run on my own for survival. Someone gave me a helping hand and helped me cross the highway that you've seen there. And I ended up in the Congo. But life wasn't easy for me in the Congo because, you know, I suffered. I didn't know the language. I was only six years old. I didn't have a family. So I had to really to struggle to survive. I had to hustle. So I had to look after people's goats and cows to be able to get food. And eventually I got malaria. Too sick that I couldn't. I was almost dying. So they took me to a Catholic nuns clinic called Sanghe there, where I went to get treated with malaria. And from there I was reunited with my uncle who was studying in the Congo at the time. So he took me in. I lived with him for two years. And unfortunately, war broke out again. So we started running all over again. War broke out in Congo too? Yeah. And what happened to you? This time I didn't want to wait too long, man. I had suffered so long. I didn't want to get shot at like my sister. I didn't want to go through the trouble I had gone through. So I just was the first one to just leave that town. Jumped in a ship that was also fleeing the port there. And I just tried to find myself a spot to hide. We ended up in Tanzania. I knew nobody. My uncle wasn't there with me. And so we lived there for a long time. And I remember that in the camp called Miyavosi where we lived. There were other people who were trying to go to some other places. So I flew with them. Some of the things that they did, man, things that can't happen to a human being. I remember that they put a cast on me pretending they were taking me to the hospital because they didn't have passports. They didn't have papers. So to be able to cross countries, they had to put this cast on me and pretended they were taking me to the hospital. So then we ended up in Mozambique. They were arrested. Then deported into Zambia. And I became a street child for some time in Zambia. In Zambia? How did you end up in Canada? So in Zambia, when I became a street kid, I was looking. I mean, even as I was a street child, I still had a bunt in me. I still had, you know, kindness. I still also longed to be somebody. So I started looking. I mean, I was living with other, you know, like kids that were doing drugs and stuff like that. And my heart never allowed me to do so. So one day, as I was looking for help in town, I came across a building that said Bible in it and walked into there. The first thing I went into was a law firm. You know, they saw, you know, this crappy child coming in. So they, you know, they yelled at me. I went to the upper level. I knocked and that time a white woman who's become my adopted mom came out and she asked me what I was doing, who I was. I didn't speak English at the time. I didn't know English, but I tried to communicate, you know, the human language and she understood. So she asked me, she gave me some transport money to go back where I was and asked me to come the next morning when her husband, my adopted dad would be there. So then I came the next morning and they said, how could we help you, you know? So I told them I wanted to go to school. I was just alone. I didn't have family. Maybe if I went to school, get educated, maybe I could have my own family. So they didn't doubt me. They said, you know, we'll support you with school. So I went and found the school and I started grade five in Zambia. I started to learn English, I started to learn the culture, the local languages and I had to be on fire because, you know, I wanted to, it was a chance when I was remembering what happened to me in Congo and stuff like that. This is a chance that I couldn't take for granted. So I started extra hard. I was always working hard. The first term I think I was the last in class, but the second term I was number two. The third time I was number one. And yeah, so then I, you know, like, I was on the move, you know, like I became, you know, a firm as the time and say, oh, the kid that studied, you know, likes to study so hard. I was getting all these awards for being a disciplined child and that kind of, like it didn't get to me, it didn't make me proud, but it made me humble and even encouraged me because I could see a child who doesn't speak English comes in an English speaking country and is dominating, you know, like it was humbling. So it made me want to work hard and hard and hard. Then eventually we got to, they brought me to Canada. That also was a cultural shock, you know, because I, you know, I went to high school there. It was very cold, minus 30, minus, you know, 25 degrees Celsius. It was very tough, but I tried to adjust. So I was working really hard. I was, you know, also I had the big wound in my heart because I was thinking of my sister that I left, you know, behind who I thought she was dead. By the way, she's still alive. She survived. What? Yeah, the next morning after I had left, her red cross came across and she wasn't dead yet and they drained her lungs. They took her into town in Bujumbura, the hospital. She was there for more than six months and she recovered and she's back in the village. So yeah, yeah. But I didn't know that at the time when I was in Canada. How long did you live in Canada? Maybe a couple of decades. Yeah, so when I was in Canada, it was only in, so I left my sister in 93 in 2005. When I was just graduating from high school in Canada. This is when one of my crazy friend, Eric, he's in Canada right now from Bujumbura. He kept, you know, because, you know, really, to be honest, I really didn't like to be called a barundian with all the bad things that had happened to me. I didn't want to be called to be referred to as an African. I was so sad. I was hurt. But this friend of mine, Eric, decided to take a tour just like you're doing, came here in Burundi and was going around with my adult picture. Well, I wasn't an adult. I was only 17 years old. But, you know, he brought a picture of a 17-year-old in Burundi asking, would anyone know this guy? You know, no one could know me, but when he was stating my parents, because I knew my sister's names and my dad's name and my mom, so he was asking and then he found them. They were shocked. They had another, they had replaced me over time. They had another Jackson. We are two Jackson's in the family. Okay. Yeah, it's crazy. So, it means your mom and dad were not dead? No, they didn't die. They survived. Wow. You know? And this is what, you know, like when you see me going, some people say, what gives that guy so much courage about life? What makes him so hopeful even when things are miserable? I say, man, I've been hit, you know? I've seen it all. I've suffered enough. But at the end of the tunnel, there's always a light. I believe that. So, I always believe in positive possibilities even when things are tough. But it's not that, it's something I just create in my brain. I have experienced it before. So, when I learned that actually when the soldiers came, went to burn my parents' house, they didn't kill them. And that my sister also survived. Because I remember when she was, you know, like she was wounded in four places. You know, back and forth. And when she would try to talk, I could just see, you know, like air coming out of her chest. And she couldn't. She was so tired. She couldn't talk. She was bleeding. But so, in 2005, Eric found her and he said, you know, he always says you were, you know, like you were attacked when you were together. Show me the wounds. And she was able to show him the wounds. And so, then she said, you know, show me Jackson. He says, well, he's in Canada. Well, can we go to Canada and see him? He says, well, it's just not that easy, you know? And at that time, 2005, mobile phones weren't as common. So I think he managed to find a place to climb on a tree. That's what he said, called my Canadian parents and said, you know what? We found Jackson's parents and family. We were all shocked. My Canadian parents were shocked. I couldn't talk. I was just in a shock. But very quickly, as I was graduating, we organized a trip for me to come back and see my family. And I was still hurt. I had this wound. I told you earlier that I didn't have so much love for, you know, being a Burundian. So when I got here, you know, I could feel the wound, the wound in my heart starting to heal. You know, it was healing. It was healing. And I saw my sister, you know, she had forgiven the people that had, you know, this is where I had to learn, you know, like to forgive him even when things are tough. She had already forgiven the people that hurt her. I saw my family, my parents. I had about seven other siblings born after I was gone. I saw another small Jackson as my replacement. Wow. But with all that, I also saw a vulnerable community, a suffering community. All my friends, when I left here, was I think in grade, in third grade. And some people that were in that grade with me, they were, that's all the education that they had. And, you know, there was no running water. There was no schools, no hospitals at that time. Burundi was just starting to come out of war. So it was sad. So I told you I had just graduated from high school. At that time I had my plans to go to study, to be a pilot. I had a lot of bursaries. So when I went back to Canada and I started taking my pre-university courses, I suffered. You know, I had depression. I really couldn't keep up. My question was, I already have high school. And there are some of my brothers and sisters back in Africa that only have that third grade and they don't have food to eat. So it was sad for me. And I couldn't concentrate in school. So I had to take time off, you know. And I asked some of my friends, I said, what's the hardest paying, well, the hardest job, but the biggest paying job I can do as a laborer here in Canada to earn so much money. So one of my friends, Josiah, said, you know, one of the toughest jobs is tree planting. But you can get a lot of money doing tree planting if you can. So I started doing tree planting. And people would say, you know, why are you on fire? Why are you working like you are a madman? What's going on? I said, you know, I have to do it for my people. I have to love being a Burundian, being an African. So I was saving this money, sending it the money. We started with an orphanage. So we built an orphanage. I didn't, I don't always like to call it an orphanage. I called it a youth center really, because I grew up as an orphanage and I knew how painful it was. So we built the orphanage, started with about 52 children, giving them education, food. And you know, so I was only doing it alone, tree planting there. And then my friend said, you know, we see you're doing this for almost a year. And you also have passion to go to school. Why can't you allow us to help to support you so you can also get your education as you wish? So we agreed on that. And I got friends supporting me. So the orphanage was getting, was going well. I went to my grad, my undergraduate part of school. Did nursing, completed that. And I moved here to Burundi checking and I was going back. During that time, I also was working on oil rigs, you know, in the summertime. Tried to drill oil to make money so I can send it back home. And yeah, did some courses. I wanted to learn. So then I went further with schooling. I wanted to learn about tropical medicine. So with all that, I was thinking, what do I really want to do? How can I make myself necessary for my African people? Wow. And so, you know, my Canadian parents were like, you need to take it easy. You know, you're spreading yourself too thin. They were feeling sorry for me. But I, you know, like I said, you know, I only have so much life left in me. I want to try and make myself necessary to others. I want to help Africa be what it is supposed to be because it has so much potential and that potential has been, you know, oppressed for certain reasons that we can mitigate or issues that we can solve. So in 2013, I decided to pack my bags to come back to Africa. So I managed to talk to some people, hospitals, organization in Canada. I said, look, you have medical equipment that you don't need. And there are some of my people that may need it. And so I was able to collect some of that equipment. I moved here. I said, I really want the place where my sister almost died because that image has been stuck with me. I would like to turn that image into a place where we could save life. So the objective was to try and see that place, that exact place where my sister was left to die. And so when I found that place, I begged the owners of that land. It was just an abandoned land. I said, you know, I remember this place. Well, they had to help me because I, you know, where the, what do you call it? I knew where the armored car that shot was shooting at us where it was parked. So I said, this is the place. So we tried to locate the place. My sister had a very sharp memory. She was still here. So she said, this is where you left me. So we looked for the owner of the land. I begged him. I said, can I buy this land from you? He was very nice. And he let me buy the land. And we built Ubuntu Clinic. Now you may ask why Ubuntu? Why Ubuntu? Another long story. But you built a hospital for your community. Correct. Which means there was no hospital in here? There wasn't a hospital in that area. We have only district hospital is Chibitoki Hospital. Are you a doctor in the hospital too? I am not working there at the hospital. You know, I told you I love farming. I decided to be a farmer. Sitting at the hospital when we have so many nurses and doctors that could do the work. And my mind is, you know, like trying, I'm a visionary, looking for things that I could do. So I decided to hire people. You know, earlier you said entrepreneurs. You know, I have a brain of an entrepreneur, a guy who just wants to make things work. So I'm not a task oriented kind of guy. I'm an innovator. That's what I like to call myself. So I had to weigh, you know, the options that are there. Are there people that I can hire to work in the hospital? Or do I have to work there myself? So we trained people. We hired people. We have about seven doctors working full time. Two specialists that come in twice a week, 53 nurses, and those are enough. So earlier I was telling you one thing that I looked at was, and I haven't always believed in chemicals, you know, like having to treat people scientifically is good. But when you can prevent that, so people don't have to be filled with medication and stuff, it's a better way. So I was here busy looking at what is making people sick. So we realized that nutrition, lack of nutrition, was a big problem. And also I was thinking about, you know, moving Burundi up, moving Africa up. So we needed to empower people. So I thought, what are some of the things that don't require so much of professionalism, so much of legal, you know, permits that we could do but we could develop Burundi, we can create jobs. And farming was the only thing that, you know, I would call is still a virgin here in Burundi. And a lot of people know how to farm here. So I wasn't bringing rocket science here. So we started to think together with the community. I wasn't bringing new ideas. We sat together with the community. We say, OK, what could we do to be able to produce much food? So people had a lot of ideas. What are some of the crops can we grow to be able to make proteins? So I became very passionate about soybeans, which is our main, the crop that we grow because of the protein content. People were initially growing cassava. But I also said, what if, because I lived in Zambia and we were using maize, fufu. And I said, what if we start growing maize on a big scale? So that's those are our main crop that we're growing, soybeans and maize. And with that soybeans, we process it with the maize and other things like barley or other things that we get from outside vitamins and stuff, powdered milk, and that we make porridge to be able to give to our patients that are in the hospital. But we went further. More than that, we do also 600 children in our community here and 250 children up in my home village there. We feed them with porridge every day. The result has been phenomenal. First, the number of admitted children, those who had anemia related to malaria, if we are feeding them, the number of the children getting admitted just dropped. And also the healing process, when they have enough food in their stomach, then they heal faster. You can imagine taking medication on an empty stomach. Most of them would throw it up. So it was just like, boom, we're finding solutions. But that was just an intervention really. We also want people, our president, his excellence of Burundi, he has a saying that each mouth should have food to eat and each pocket should have cash. So I had to walk under his footsteps. How could we achieve that objective that his excellence is the president of Burundi believes in? How could we have each mouth have food to eat and each pocket with money? So we said, okay, the intervention process is over. Let's now start to think about growing abandoned food, some that we could give to more people, some that we could trade with other things so that we have a health Burundi. And that's what we're doing right now. How many farms, how many different crops are you growing right now? Yes, so the main one, like I said, is soybeans and maize. But we do cassava, we do a lot of things. By the way, this is a conflict that I had when I grew up in Canada where we would have 100 hectares of wheat, just one, or canola. But here in Burundi, we have that privilege to do variety. So we do beans, we do amaranth for vegetables, we do cabbage, we do even chili, hot peppers. We do eggplants, we do bananas on a large scale as well. We grow bananas. And then on animal husbandry, livestock, we do chickens, we do fish, tilapia mostly, and cutfish. And this is, you remind my parents and my Canadian friends, you say, ah man, you're spreading yourself too thin. So I would say, come to Burundi, then you'll see that I'm not alone, I have people. Burundi has so many people, we have the human capacity. That's an advantage that other places don't have. I remember in a Canadian hospital, I would be there on a ward, looking after so many patients, because there's lack of human power. Or when I was working on oil rigs, maybe just three guys operating a rig that would need at least 100 people. But that's the problem that they had there. And I said, why don't we use, here in Burundi, here in Africa, we have so many people that we can put to work. And that's what we've been doing. So when my Canadian friends say, you know, you're doing too much. So when they come, many people have been coming now, which is a great thing. They say, oh now we understand, you know.