UBUNTU VILLAGE OF LIFE

Dr. Alexis Nizigiyimana was born in rural Mugamba, Burundi, into a large family facing deep poverty and scarce healthcare. At seven, he experienced profound loss when his mother lost a newborn at home due to a lack of medical support. She made her children vow: “Become healers.” This promise became Alexis’ life mission.

Determined to honor the sibling he never knew and his mother’s resilience, Alexis committed to ensuring that no woman or child would suffer a preventable tragedy again. He pursued medical studies at the National University of Burundi and, while still a student, gathered supporters to launch a mobile clinic in his home region, planting the seeds of what would grow into Ubuntu Village of Life.

His journey took him from Burundi to the U.S. as a Mandela Washington Fellow and IVLP alumnus, and later to Canada and Israel for his masters and doctoral studies. He worked tirelessly with limited resources, balancing multiple jobs, sending savings home, and reinvesting in expanding healthcare access for the underserved.

In 2020, alongside his wife Yolaine, Alexis formalized UVL with a mission: to create a world where no mother or child dies from lack of care. Through partnerships and innovative solutions, UVL has delivered life-saving care to over 30,000 patients, including over 5,000 children under five and over 1,000 pregnant mothers, while also advancing nutrition, WASH, education, and health equity in neglected areas.

From a rented clinic to a thriving movement, UVL embodies the dream of a boy shaped by loss and the belief that radical dignity, compassionate innovation, and collective action can heal generations.

This isn’t just Alexis’s story; it’s every mother’s cry answered and every child’s future safeguarded. It proves that when we heal as one (Ubuntu), even ambitious dreams—like achieving zero preventable deaths in Africa—become possible

Now, Dr. Alexis focuses on the next chapter: creating a modern, green, self-sustaining teaching and research hospital with an outpatient dispensing micro-clinic network in Burundi by 2030—a legacy built on love, loss, and purpose.