Alexis Arakaza

Alexis Arakaza was born in the Bururi province in Burundi. He graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Burundi before starting his leadership journey in 2014.

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He attended different personal and professional development trainings on national, regional and international level. He’s been trained in peace building and governance, and Human and People’s Rights in order to understand challenges related to peace in the region.

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After completion of the two programs, Alexis worked with the East African Community Youth Ambassadors Platform  as a volunteer consultant in the project of mobilization on peace building, conflict prevention and reconciliation to youth from Burundian Universities and political parties’ youth leagues, supported by the Burundian Ministry of EAC integration and GIZ. He was awarded a scholarship to attend a training on transformative leadership in Kenya under YALI program  (Young African Leaders Initiative) in 2017 and went to an African leadership training by African Change Makers Initiative (ACI) in Nigeria in 2019 and participated as a panelist in the workshop on preventing violent extremism organized by YELI Burundi in partnership with UNESCO MGIEP in 2019.

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Presently, he is following a Fulbright fellowship program known as Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship in the United States. He started the program with a two month training on American culture and language at the University of Kansas before joining the Humphrey academic and professional year at Vanderbilt University.

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He recently obtained a professional certificate in Leadership and Communication from Harvard University with focus on Foundational Principles of Leadership and Rhetoric: the Art of persuasive writing subjects. As part of the Humphrey program, Arakaza is conducting his professional affiliation at Tennessee State University Intensive English Center where he teaches English as Second Language (ESL) to students from around the world.

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With 8 years of experience in education, Mr. Arakaza is very dedicated to considerably contribute in handling education challenges in Burundi and worldwide with a central interest in early child education, teacher’s professional development and school leadership. He attended international conferences including Innovation school summit in Atlanta, Georgia in December 2021 and TESOL International Convention and English Language expo in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in March 2022 and still serves as an SDG 4 delegate and Community educator in World Merit Burundi and AVLT, the civil society organizations that he co-founded and co-leads in his country. In the same aim, he founded TIES (Together for an Inclusive Education and Solution), a nonprofit organization that works to promote capacity building, child development and solution building in order to contribute to promoting an inclusive education. He presently works as an English teacher and independent consultant in leadership, education, peace building, conflict transformation and reconciliation.

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In short, Alexis is an internationally experienced leader with outstanding personal, professional and interpersonal skills. He is a dynamic, positive, hardworking and result-oriented educator and peace activist with team building skills along with learning and serving at the center of his interest. When he’s not working, Alexis enjoys reading books, listening to music and spending time with friends.