JOHANNESBURG — Renowned South African playwright, producer and composer Mbongeni Ngema, the creator of the Broadway hit “Sarafina!”, has died in a car crash at the age of 68, his family said.

Ngema was killed in a head-on accident while returning from a funeral in a rural town in Eastern Cape province, the family said in a statement Wednesday. The celebrated playwright was a passenger in the vehicle.

He was best known for writing “Sarafina!”, which premiered on Broadway in 1988. It was adapted into a musical drama starring Whoopi Goldberg in 1992 and became an international success, being nominated for Tony and Grammy awards.

“Sarafina!” told the story of a student and how she inspired her peers to fight against racial segregation in apartheid South Africa after her favorite teacher, played by Goldberg, was thrown in jail for protesting against the system.

The story was based on the events of the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa, when thousands of students took part in protests against the apartheid government.

Apartheid was an institutionalized system that discriminated against non-whites and ensured South Africa was ruled by the minority white population from 1948 until the first all-race democratic elections in 1994.

Ngema’s body of work also included the lauded theater production “Woza Albert,” which premiered in 1981 and won more than 20 awards around the world. The political satire explored the second coming of Jesus Christ as a black man in South Africa during apartheid.

Tributes to Ngema poured in, including from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The many productions he created or to which he contributed inspired resilience and pride among us as fellow South Africans and took South Africa and our continent into the theaters, homes and consciousness of millions of people around the world,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party and one of its biggest rivals, the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, both conveyed their condolences.

The ANC said in a statement: “He was a globally acclaimed playwright, composer and producer. We have lost a true legend, a doyen, and a genuine ambassador of theater.”

The Economic Freedom Fighters party described him as “more than just an artist; he was a cultural icon and a beacon of hope during some of our darkest times.”

Zizi Kodwa, South Africa’s minister of sports, arts and culture, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Ngema’s work “touched and moved audiences around the world and made an important contribution in telling the South African story.”

The passing of Dr Mbongeni Ngema is a significant loss to South African arts. Dr Ngema’s work touched and moved audiences around the world and made an important contribution in telling the South African story@SportArtsCultur @GovernmentZA @DurbanPlayhouse @kzngov @SACulturalObs https://t.co/EUyzphVz0z

— Minister of Sport, Arts & Culture (@zizikodwa) December 28, 2023

Influential Kenyan American leader, Mr. Jeremiah Bosire Maroko, passed away on May 28 at age 67, leaving behind a legacy of uniting the dominant Abagusii Kenyans in Minnesota with other Kenyans in the state.

The cause of death was prostate cancer, according to his nephew Mr. Albert “Kastone” Nyamari.

Heralded by other Minnesota Kenyan leaders and community members as a dynamic leader who aspired to bring about positive change in whatever he was involved in, Mr. Maroko led the influential Mwanyagetinge Association of Kenyans in Minnesota from 2010 to 2013. He remained a mentor to those who succeeded him after leaving office. After he left office, the title of chairman was changed to president which ushered in a cadre of millennial leaders to lead the organization including Mr. Geoffrey Gichana and the organization’s first elected female leader, Ms. Huldah Momanyi Hiltsley.

Mwanyagetinge is the largest organized group of Kenyans in Minnesota that draws members from the state’s large Abagusii community. By their sheer numbers, accounting for almost 80 percent of Kenyans in the state when he was chairman, major initiatives involving Kenyans have very little chance of success without the community’s active participation.

Mr. Maroko, during his tenure is among those who championed the now common practice of Mwanyagetinge joining with other Kenya associations in the state as a consortium to organize common national events relevant to all Kenyans.

“That man was soft-spoken but (a) very inspirational leader and knew how to make things happen,” Mr. Henry Momanyi, executive director of a nonprofit that works on health issues and a former Brooklyn Park City Council candidate told Mshale. “During my time here, he is one of the best Mwanyagetinge leaders we have had.”

He was born in Kenya on November 23, 1955. A chemist by training, he spent the early part of his professional life as a coffee researcher in Kenya, and had lived in Minnesota with his family since 2002, arriving here after winning a green card lottery. His bachelors in pure sciences was from Kenyatta University in Kenya in 1981, and was also awarded a master’s degree in analytical chemistry from a Canadian university in 1983.

In the United States, he parlayed his training in coffee research as a scientist for Aveda, the Minneapolis-based manufacturer of plant and flower-based cosmetics that is owned by Estée Lauder Companies.

Mr.  Maroko was part of the second wave of Kenyans to arrive in the state as already established professionals in Kenya, the first wave being those who came as young international students in the 80s and 90s.

The loss of his first wife, Esther, in Kenya before he came to the United States in 2002 had given him a deliberative approach to life, devoid of rushed decisions. He had four children with his first wife, the late Onesmus, Peter, Jeffrey and Steve. He married Ms. Naomi Kemunto in 2010 and bore two children, Edith and Kefa.

“We’ve really lost a thinker and leader, someone who truly is an inspiration and role model for us all,” Ms. Roselidah Nyaberi, current president of Mwanyagetinge, told Mshale.

Ms. Nyaberi who spoke to Mshale on the sidelines of Madaraka Day celebrations in Brooklyn Center on Sunday, marveled at the foresightedness of the departed Mr. Maroko.

Mr. Maroko “had a vision for Mwanyagetinge to help our people adapt and thrive in Minnesota,” Ms. Nyaberi said. She said she was new to Minnesota when Mr. Maroko was president and she remembers him encouraging people to not just develop Kenya but also “set roots in America and prosper”, advice that he himself followed by example. Two of his children are active-duty service members, one a US Marine and the other in the US Airforce.

Ms. Nyaberi noted that Mr. Maroko not only advocated for Omogusii but worked on behalf of the larger Kenyan community, as well as other immigrant communities. The Madaraka Day family event on Sunday where Mshale interviewed Ms. Nyaberi was organized by Minnesota Kenyan Association (MKA), a consortium of all the Kenyan organizations in the state. Mr. Maroko was an early supporter of an MKA type organization that will undertake matters common to all Kenyans, including key national holidays like Jamhuri Day which celebrates Kenya’s independence from colonialism.

Evidence of his foresightedness and planning was laid bare shortly after his death. As is customary with many Kenyans in the United States, leaders started gathering to organize funeral arrangements and also potentially send his remains to Kenya for burial. In short order, leaders were advised that Mr. Maroko’s wish was to be buried in the United States where most of his family now lives. A wish he had expressed in a written will.

The late Mr. Maroko is survived by his wife Naomi, five children and a large extended family.

“He was a connector,” Ms. Nyaberi said. “He was able to build bridges and strengthen the existing bridges between other communities and ours and I pray he rests in peace.”

Viewing

A viewing will be held at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, at the Edge Christian Worship Center SDA Church, 4707 Edinbrook Terrace, Brooklyn Park, MN 55443.

Memorial Service

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 11, 2023, also at the Edge Christian Worship Center SDA Church, 4707 Edinbrook Terrace, Brooklyn Park, MN 55443.

The times for the viewing and memorial services have been updated to 4pm from the previous 3pm that were shown when this story originally published.

NEW YORK (AP) — Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, has died. He was 96.

Belafonte died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at his New York home, his wife Pamela by his side, said publicist Ken Sunshine.

With his glowing, handsome face and silky-husky voice, Belafonte was one of the first Black performers to gain a wide following on film and to sell a million records as a singer; many still know him for his signature hit “Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and its call of “Day-O! Daaaaay-O.” But he forged a greater legacy once he scaled back his performing career in the 1960s and lived out his hero Paul Robeson’s decree that artists are “gatekeepers of truth.”

Belafonte stands as the model and the epitome of the celebrity activist. Few kept up with his time and commitment and none his stature as a meeting point among Hollywood, Washington and the Civil Rights Movement.

Belafonte not only participated in protest marches and benefit concerts, but helped organize and raise support for them. He worked closely with his friend and generational peer the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., often intervening on his behalf with both politicians and fellow entertainers and helping him financially. He risked his life and livelihood and set high standards for younger Black celebrities, scolding Jay-Z and Beyoncé for failing to meet their “social responsibilities,” and mentoring Usher, Common, Danny Glover and many others. In Spike Lee’s 2018 film “BlacKkKlansman,” he was fittingly cast as an elder statesman schooling young activists about the country’s past.

Belafonte’s friend, civil rights leader Andrew Young, would note that Belafonte was the rare person to grow more radical with age. He was ever engaged and unyielding, willing to take on Southern segregationists, Northern liberals, the billionaire Koch brothers and the country’s first Black president, Barack Obama, whom Belafonte would remember asking to cut him “some slack.”

Belafonte responded, “What makes you think that’s not what I’ve been doing?”

Belafonte had been a major artist since the 1950s. He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring role in John Murray Anderson’s “Almanac” and five years later became the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the TV special “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.”

In 1954, he co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in the Otto Preminger-directed musical “Carmen Jones,” a popular breakthrough for an all-Black cast. The 1957 movie “Island in the Sun” was banned in several Southern cities, where theater owners were threatened by the Ku Klux Klan because of the film’s interracial romance between Belafonte and Joan Fontaine.

His “Calypso,” released in 1955, became the first officially certified million-selling album by a solo performer, and started a national infatuation with Caribbean rhythms (Belafonte was nicknamed, reluctantly, the “King of Calypso″). Admirers of Belafonte included a young Bob Dylan, who debuted on record in the early ’60s by playing harmonica on Belafonte’s “Midnight Special.”

“Harry was the best balladeer in the land and everybody knew it,” Dylan later wrote. “Harry was that rare type of character that radiates greatness, and you hope that some of it rubs off on you.”

Belafonte befriended King in the spring of 1956 after the young civil rights leader called and asked for a meeting. They spoke for hours, and Belafonte would remember feeling King raised him to the “higher plane of social protest.” Then at the peak of his singing career, Belafonte was soon producing a benefit concert for the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that helped make King a national figure. By the early 1960s, he had decided to make civil rights his priority.

“I was having almost daily talks with Martin,” Belafonte wrote in his memoir “My Song,” published in 2011. “I realized that the movement was more important than anything else.”

The Kennedys were among the first politicians to seek his opinions, which he willingly shared. John F. Kennedy, at a time when Black voters were as likely to support Republicans as they would Democrats, was so anxious for his support that during the 1960 election he visited Belafonte at his Manhattan home. Belafonte explained King’s importance and arranged for King and Kennedy to meet.

“I was quite taken by the fact that he (Kennedy) knew so little about the Black community,” Belafonte told NBC in 2013. “He knew the headlines of the day, but he wasn’t really anywhere nuanced or detailed on the depth of Black anguish or what our struggle’s really about.”

Belafonte would often criticize the Kennedys for their reluctance to challenge the Southern segregationists who were then a substantial part of the Democratic Party. He argued with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president’s brother, over the government’s failure to protect the “Freedom Riders” trying to integrate bus stations. He was among the Black activists at a widely publicized meeting with the attorney general, when playwright Lorraine Hansberry and others stunned Kennedy by questioning whether the country even deserved Black allegiance.

“Bobby turned red at that. I had never seen him so shaken,” Belafonte later wrote.

In 1963, Belafonte was deeply involved with the historic March on Washington. He recruited his close friend Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman and other celebrities and persuaded the left-wing Marlon Brando to co-chair the Hollywood delegation with the more conservative Charlton Heston, a pairing designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience. In 1964, he and Poitier personally delivered tens of thousands of dollar to activists in Mississippi after three “Freedom Summer” volunteers were murdered — the two celebrities were chased by car at one point by members of the KKK. The following year, he brought in Tony Bennett, Joan Baez and other singers to perform for the marchers in Selma, Alabama.

When King was assassinated, in 1968, Belafonte helped pick out the suit he was buried in, sat next to his widow, Coretta, at the funeral, and continued to support his family, in part through an insurance policy he had taken out on King in his lifetime.

“Much of my political outlook was already in place when I encountered Dr. King,” Belafonte later wrote. “I was well on my way and utterly committed to the civil rights struggle. I came to him with expectations and he affirmed them.”

King’s death left Belafonte isolated from the civil rights community. He was turned off by the separatist beliefs of Stokely Carmichael and other “Black Power” activists and had little chemistry with King’s designated successor, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. But the entertainer’s causes extended well beyond the U.S.

He helped introduce South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba to American audiences, the two winning a Grammy in 1964 for the concert record “An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba.” He coordinated Nelson Mandela’s first visit to the U.S. since being released from prison in 1990. A few years earlier, he had initiated the all-star, million-selling “We Are the World” recording, the Grammy-winning charity song for famine relief in Africa.

Belafonte’s early life and career paralleled those of Poitier, who died in 2022. Both spent part of their childhoods in the Caribbean and ended up in New York. Both served in the military during World War II, acted in the American Negro Theatre and then broke into film. Poitier shared his belief in civil rights, but still dedicated much of his time to acting, a source of some tension between them. While Poitier had a sustained and historic run in the 1960s as a leading man and box office success, Belafonte grew tired of acting and turned down parts he regarded as “neutered.″

“Sidney radiated a truly saintly dignity and calm. Not me,″ Belafonte wrote in his memoir. “I didn’t want to tone down my sexuality, either. Sidney did that in every role he took.″

Belafonte was very much a human being. He acknowledged extra-marital affairs, negligence as a parent and a frightening temper, driven by lifelong insecurity. “Woe to the musician who missed his cue, or the agent who fouled up a booking,″ he confided.

In his memoir, he chastised Poitier for a “radical breach″ by backing out on a commitment to star as Mandela in a TV miniseries Belafonte had conceived, then agreeing to play Mandela for a rival production. He became so estranged from King’s widow and children that he was not asked to speak at her funeral. He later sued three of King’s children over control of some of the civil rights leader’s personal papers, and would allege that the family was preoccupied with “selling trinkets and memorabilia.”

He made news years earlier when he compared Colin Powell, the first Black secretary of state, to a slave “permitted to come into the house of the master” for his service in the George W. Bush administration. He was in Washington in January 2009 as Obama was inaugurated, officiating along with Baez and others at a gala called the Inaugural Peace Ball. But Belafonte would later criticize Obama for failing to live up to his promise and lacking “fundamental empathy with the dispossessed, be they white or Black.”

Belafonte did occasionally serve in government, as cultural adviser for the Peace Corps during the Kennedy administration and decades later as goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. For his film and music career, he received the motion picture academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, a National Medal of Arts, a Grammy for lifetime achievement and numerous other honorary prizes. He found special pleasure in winning a New York Film Critics Award in 1996 for his work as a gangster in Robert Altman’s “Kansas City.”

“I’m as proud of that film critics’ award as I am of all my gold records,” he wrote in his memoir.

He was married three times, most recently to photographer Pamela Frank, and had four children. Three of them — Shari, David and Gina — became actors. He is also survived by two stepchildren and eight grandchildren.

Harry Belafonte was born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. in 1927, in Harlem. His father was a seaman and cook with Dutch and Jamaican ancestry and his mother, part Scottish, worked as a domestic. Both parents were undocumented immigrants and Belafonte recalled living “an underground life, as criminals of a sort, on the run.″

The household was violent: Belafonte sustained brutal beatings from his father, and he was sent to live for several years with relatives in Jamaica. Belafonte was a poor reader — he was probably dyslexic, he later realized — and dropped out of high school, soon joining the Navy. While in the service, he read “Color and Democracy” by the Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois and was deeply affected, calling it the start of his political education.

After the war, he found a job in New York as an assistant janitor for some apartment buildings. One tenant liked him enough to give him free tickets to a play at the American Negro Theatre, a community repertory for black performers. Belafonte was so impressed that he joined as a volunteer, then as an actor. Poitier was a peer, both of them “skinny, brooding and vulnerable within our hard shells of self-protection,″ Belafonte later wrote.

Belafonte met Brando, Walter Matthau and other future stars while taking acting classes at the New School for Social Research. Brando was an inspiration as an actor, and he and Belafonte became close, sometimes riding on Brando’s motorcycle or double dating or playing congas together at parties. Over the years, Belafonte’s political and artistic lives would lead to friendships with everyone from Frank Sinatra and Lester Young to Eleanor Roosevelt and Fidel Castro.

His early stage credits included “Days of Our Youth″ and Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Peacock,″ a play Belafonte remembered less because of his own performance than because of a backstage visitor, Robeson, the actor, singer and activist.

“What I remember more than anything Robeson said, was the love he radiated, and the profound responsibility he felt, as an actor, to use his platform as a bully pulpit,″ Belafonte wrote in his memoir. His friendship with Robeson and support for left-wing causes eventually brought trouble from the government. FBI agents visited him at home and allegations of Communism nearly cost him an appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.″ Leftists suspected, and Belafonte emphatically denied, that he had named names of suspected Communists so he could perform on Sullivan’s show.

By the 1950s, Belafonte was also singing, finding gigs at the Blue Note, the Vanguard and other clubs — he was backed for one performance by Charlie Parker and Max Roach — and becoming immersed in folk, blues, jazz and the calypso he had heard while living in Jamaica. Starting in 1954, he released such top 10 albums as “Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites″ and “Belafonte,″ and his popular singles included “Mathilda,″ “Jamaica Farewell″ and “The Banana Boat Song,″ a reworked Caribbean ballad that was a late addition to his “Calypso″ record.

“We found ourselves one or two songs short, so we threw in `Day-O’ as filler,″ Belafonte wrote in his memoir.

He was a superstar, but one criticized, and occasionally sued, for taking traditional material and not sharing the profits. Belafonte expressed regret and also worried about being typecast as a calypso singer, declining for years to sing “Day-O″ live after he gave television performances against banana boat backdrops.

Belafonte was the rare young artist to think about the business side of show business. He started one of the first all-Black music publishing companies. He produced plays, movies and TV shows, including Off-Broadway’s “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” in 1969. He was the first Black person to produce for TV.

Belafonte made history in 1968 by filling in for Johnny Carson on the “Tonight” show for a full week. Later that year, a simple, spontaneous gesture led to another milestone. Appearing on a taped TV special starring Petula Clark, Belafonte joined the British singer on the anti-war song “On the Path of Glory.″ At one point, Clark placed a hand on Belafonte’s arm. The show’s sponsor, Chrysler, demanded the segment be reshot. Clark and Belafonte resisted, successfully, and for the first time a white woman touched a Black man’s arm on primetime television.

In the 1970s, he returned to movie acting, co-starring with Poitier in “Buck and the Preacher,″ a commercial flop, and the raucous and popular comedy “Uptown Saturday Night.” His other film credits include “Bobby,″ “White Man’s Burden,″ cameos in Altman’s “The Player″ and “Ready to Wear,″ and the Altman-directed TV series “Tanner on Tanner.″ In 2011, HBO aired a documentary about Belafonte, “Sing Your Song.”

Mindful to the end that he grew up in poverty, Belafonte did not think of himself as an artist who became an activist, but an activist who happened to be an artist.

“When you grow up, son,″ Belafonte remembered his mother telling him, “never go to bed at night knowing that there was something you could have done during the day to strike a blow against injustice and you didn’t do it.″

The Mountain Experience (TME) SDA Church in Mounds View, MN and the family of Elder William Moochi is sad to announce the passing of Elder George Nyakundi Moochi of Edina, Minnesota on Thursday, February 2, 2023 which occurred at Hennepin County Medical Center where he was undergoing treatment.

He was the son to the late Elder William Moochi and Aska Magoma.

He was Brother to Teleck, Wilfred, Priscilla, Lydia, Joseline, Esther, Ana, late Dorothy & Naomi. Cousin to Isaiah & Michael Nyamburi, Lawrence Mokaya, Charles Mokaya all of Minnesota and Ruth, Nyambati, Elizabeth all of New York, Orina ND, Kennedy DE, Zadock & Moraa all of North Carolina, Anne & Maxwell, Zakayo, Ong’uti, Nyambati, Okara, Musa, Yobesh, Nemwell among others all of Kenya. Uncle to Isaboke NC, Linda, Angela, Sheila, Kenyuri, Ruth, Jerusha, Joshua, Elijah all of Minnesota, among others.

Family and friends are meeting daily for prayers at: 2253 Cheshire Circle, Mounds View, MN 55112.

For financial contributions, please send to:

Edward Anunda Cash app: $EdwardAnunda or Zelle:763-318-9119.

Join the WhatsApp Group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HJe4h8uFdmH5b1AfmFVnH9

For more information and for messages of condolences and encouragement, reach out to:

1. Isaiah Nyamburi: 952-237-6484
2. Lawrence Mokaya: 612-351-7115
3. Dennis Bundi: 612-481-0666
4. Pastor Eric Mokua: 763-607-1193
5. Pastor Peter King’oina: 763-316-9353
6. Elder Japheth Kimaiga: 763-422-0222
7. Elder Evans Sing’ombe: 612-986-0101
8. Elder Duke Onyangi: 763-516-4555
9. Wycliff Kimaiga: 612-351-7115
10. Kennedy Nyamburi: 302-442-2455
11. Isaboke Ombongi: 919-638-9466
12. Elizabeth Amenya: 845-531-9245
13. Jared Onkoba: 908-266-8769
14. Geoffrey Nyamburi 845-490-8755
15. Elder Collins Maranga: 763-232-3555
16. Pastor Leakey Nyaberi: 763-443-6300
17. Pastor Jared Kigori: 773-971-0247

Philanthropist and Minnesota resident Timon Bondo passed away on September 1 from cardiac arrest in his home in Rabondo Kenya. His exact age was unknown but was estimated to be in his 80s.

Bondo, a native of Kenya moved to Minnesota in the early 1960s to pursue an education at the University of Minnesota. He was a member of what is called the “airlift generation” chronicled in the book, Airlift to America by Tom Schachtman, which tells the story of 800 African students brought to the United States in the early 1960s to attend college, among them was an eventual Nobel Prize winner, the late Wangari Maathai. Bondo was not part of the 800 but all African students who came to the United States during that time have come to be regarded as members of the “airlift generation.”

He had intended to complete his studies in agricultural economics and return home to his native village of Rabondo in western Kenya. Little did he know that the place where he had first arrived as an international student would become his second home for almost six decades.

Close friends and family of Bondo knew him as a man of great compassion and resilience.

“He was a perfect gentleman,” said Dr. Larban Otieno, a retired dentist and longtime friend of Bondo. “He would take his shirt off his back,” he said.

Otieno was friends with Bondo for nearly six decades, the two first met in 1965. They became acquainted when Otieno and a group of African students were visiting the University of Minnesota where Bondo was studying. Upon graduating from University, Bondo found work in the financial services sector.

After establishing himself in the United States Bondo was dedicated to helping new immigrants settle into the state. One of the individuals he helped was Hosea Ojwang.

Ojwang moved to the U.S. in February of 1993 towards the end of Minnesota’s winter from Kenya. At the time of his arrival, his wife who had been living here left for an overseas research study. Left to navigate life in the new country solo, Bondo was of great service.

“There was Timon to help me out in the absence of my spouse,” he said. Bondo was instrumental in aiding Mr. Ojwang to obtain his driver’s license by driving him to the testing location and allowing him to take the exam with his car. The two began a friendship that has lasted almost three decades until Bondo’s passing. In fact, Ojwang was with Bondo in November before his departure from Minnesota.

After being diagnosed with an incurable eye disease in 1996, Bondo decided to go back to Kenya and visit his village for the first time since leaving.

Upon his return, Bondo found a place that was hard hit with poverty and low access to education. He also witnessed the aftermath of a HIV/AIDS crisis that had claimed many lives and left children orphaned. Overwhelmed with compassion, Bondo began his philanthropic organization, the Rabondo Community Project (RCP) to raise funds to establish a school in his native village.

Since that 1996 visit, he has spent the Minnesota winters in Kenya, leaving each November and coming back to Minnesota in the spring. This year he could not make it back to Minnesota as Kenya closed its airspace due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was about to return to the states after the resumption of flights when he died.

“He came from a community where there was no school and he went there and started a school from scratch,” Otieno said. Since its inception over twenty years ago the organization has touched countless lives by providing educational and employment opportunities to a community that had limited access to it.

“Timon was a visionary and has left lots in terms of legacy,” Ojwang said. “He pulled a lot of people out of poverty,” he said. Over the years RCP has changed many lives through its educational and scholarship programs.

Educating the population has had a ripple effect, as students who have graduated from the schools have been able to find employment and in turn support others. The schools that have been built have provided employment opportunities for local community members. RCP also built a fresh water well and brought electricity to the schools and the entire Rabondo community. The organization currently supports seven hundred students.

“Timon was resilient, he was selfless and a person of deep integrity,” Ojwang said. As a man of great perseverance, he did not let his diagnosis prevent him from creating positive change in the lives of others. “He taught me that disabilities and age are not barriers for great things,” Ojwang said.

The diagnosis he received in 1996 led him to gradually lose his eyesight. Bondo had completely lost his vision at the time of his death.

In his day to day life, Bondo had a positive and contagious demeanor. “He loved fun, had a sense of humor, very human, I took him many places and was always struck at the way people received him,” Ojwang said. “People related to him in a very special way because of his good-naturedness,” he said.

Bondo is already missed by his friends, “he was somebody I cared about and loved,” Ojwang said.

“Rest in peace and we miss you very much,” Otieno said. His legacy lives on in the hearts and lives that he touched.

His son Michael Bondo and older sister Marcela Atieno Bondo survive Bondo. He will be laid to rest on Friday September 18 in Rabondo.

Plans for a Minnesota memorial celebrating his life are underway.

To support the mission of the Rabondo Community Project you can visit their website to make a donation.

Adassa Clement Opusunju, Nigerian-American serial entrepreneur and philanthropist died on Tuesday, May 19 of the coronavirus, throwing the large Nigerian community in Minnesota into a state of shock and mourning. His death is the second high profile death of an African immigrant in the state in the same week, coming just two days after that of Kenyan-American college educator, Dr. Thomas Nyambane.

COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 818 lives in Minnesota as of May 22, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

“He [was] the most generous large-hearted business man that we’ve had in this community,” attorney and longtime friend Paschal Nwokocha said. He was generous with his time and money.

Opusunju came to the United States in the late 1980s and had called Minnesota home for over two decades. Opusunju founded multiple companies with his wife Josephine Oposunju, in clinical healthcare and automotive industry that provided employment to individuals within and outside the African community.

“He [was] one of our financial backbones” Dr. Felicia Ikebude said. Ikebude is the president of the Association of Nigerian Nurses in Minnesota. The group has had a long-standing relationship with Opusunju whereby he hired nurses from the organization at his healthcare facilities.

“He was really very influential in helping a lot of people find their footing in this country,” Nwokocha said. Opusunju was known to hire new immigrant residents that did not yet have work experience in the United States, granting them an opening to start their careers.

“He [was] the epitome of community philanthropy” Jude Nnadi said. Nnadi is a Twin Cities contractor and friend of Opusunju. He had the opportunity to do business with Oposunju by doing construction projects for him at his various facilities.

As a generous philanthropist, Opusunju used his influence and funds to support local events, scholarship funds, and non-profit organizations. One such organization was Ijaw Women of America which upon hearing of his death expressed shock and in a statement said “With tears rolling down our cheeks and utmost shock, Ijaw Women of America Inc. announces the untimely passing away of our big brother, our husband, our father, our uncle, our mentor and our friend….. our one and only Grand Patron Adassa Clement Opusunju.” The statement went on to say that the late Opusunju “Picked us up when no one believed in us.”

Prior to his death, Opusunju was in the process of procuring personal protective equipment (PPE) from Nigeria to provide to healthcare workers in Minnesota, according to Nnadi. The conversation between the two regarding the PPEs had come up because following the COVID-19 pandemic, Nnadi along with other community members formed The Minnesota African Coalition COVID-19 Taskforce (MACC-T), aimed at lessening the economic impact that the pandemic is having on minority communities.

That he would be trying to address a big community problem such as the shortage of PPEs was what defined the late Opusunju.

“Our heart is heavy, we lost one of the pillars in the community. We will miss him dearly,” Ikebude said.

He is survived by his wife Josephine Opusunju and their six children.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of the late Opusunju’s last name.

Minnesota’s Kenyan community is grieving the loss of an influential community leader, Thomas Nyambane, to coronavirus. Nyambane, affectionately referred to as Dr. Nyambane, was a college educator and was just a few years into his retirement following a career of teaching at Hennepin Technical College. He died yesterday (May 17) aged 69.

His death is the first reported fatality of a Kenyan in Minnesota from the COVID-19 pandemic that as of May 18 had claimed 731 lives in the state.

After moving to the United States in the 80s with his wife Alice, first to Texas and then to Minnesota, they raised three children and worked hard to encourage and model cohesion of the Kenyan community in the state. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas and two masters degrees from the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities. His doctorate degree in philosophy was from Bethel University in Saint Paul.

He was a practicing Seventh Day Adventist and was a church elder at The Mountain Experience SDA Church in Moundsview.

Friends and family that spoke to Mshale described the late Nyambane as a mentor and leader that guided many to achieve their potential and American dream.

His eldest son, Cyprian Kambuni, said the sudden loss of his father is a shock to the family and the community he served.

“He had a very generous heart – to everyone and it did not matter who or where you came from and whether you were a kid or a grownup,” said Kambuni. The son said his generosity and kindness knew no bounds as he dispensed it in equal measure both locally where he lived and to his place of birth. He was a regular in fundraisers to raise money for Books for Africa through the Minnesota Kenya International Development Association (MKIDA) to send containers of books to Kenya.

Kambuni said his father had been through four back surgeries in the last few years and had an underlying condition of diabetes that made him vulnerable to the coronavirus. His age also put him at risk.

“He complained of shortness of breath on April 30 and got admitted at the hospital and when he got tested, he was positive of the virus,” Kambuni told Mshale via phone.

Kambuni said it is not clear where his father might have contracted the coronavirus given that he had been staying close to home following Governor Walz’s stay-at-home order, only going outside his apartment to get mail, as far as he can recall.

The son said given his father’s expressed wishes over the years to be buried at his birth place, the family is trying to come to terms on how to respect those wishes given the global pandemic. Kenya is among the African countries that have closed their airspace to commercial flights following the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Nyambane’s friend, Daniel Monari, said the late Nyambane worked hard to bring Kenyans in Minnesota, especially those from Gusii, together and was tireless in facilitating interaction between Minnesota and his native Kisii County in Kenya, at one time being part of a delegation of Minnesota firefighters that went to Kisii to train their counterparts.

“He loved working for Kenyans, loved to be involved, loved to serve the community. Not seeing himself as a leader, but as a uniter of us all.”

Monari added one thing that struck him most about the late Nyambane was the fact that he gave equal respect to ideas from both men and women, recalling a time when Nyambane was chair of the Basi Community Foundation and he was the treasurer, “He would never allow dysfunction to surround him, and he put in place structures at the foundation that have stood the test of time.”

Echoing the late Nyambane as a respecter of all sexes was Lyna Nyamwaya, president of The African Nurses Network. Despite his influence and standing, Nyamwaya recalls how modest Nyambane was when she invited him to be part of a panel two years ago. Speaking in Ekegusii, Nyambane said “Baba Lyna ning’isaine koroku richuma gaki? Korende asengecho yamasikani ao, I will do it.” Loosely translated the late Nyambane was wondering if he was worthy of being on the panel but because of the respect Nyamwaya had shown him he would join the panel.

The president of the Minnesota Kenya Association, Geoffrey “Chui” Gichana, moaned the loss of a mentor whose wise counsel he said he will miss.

“He is one of those people you feel better after you are done talking to. He was a great elder and leader of our community that we are going to really miss, and especially me personally,” said Gichana.

Nyambane is survived by his wife of more than four decades Alice, his daughter Mercy and two sons, Cyprian and Fred.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Erastus Ondieki Onchwari, who died February 25 at the age of 58, is being remembered as an entrepreneur, community activist, dreamer and a leader by his many friends and family who knew him best. His death was confirmed by his brother Joshua Onchwari.

He was last active on social media on February 24, a day before his death, when he shared a memory on Facebook from a posting in 2013 on his timeline that read: “A man can plan his ways but it is God that establishes his steps.”

Onchwari graduated with his Master of Science in Economics from the University of North Texas while retaining an uncanny ability to break down complex economic theories to others in an easily accessible manner. Born in Kisii County in Kenya, he traveled to Texas in 1985 to attend college, earning both his bachelors and masters. He later moved to Minnesota where he had success in business and community organizing.

As many friends can attest, Onchwari enjoyed being an active part of the community and served in many capacities, including as an administrator of the rapidly growing Gusii Community Network (GUCONET), a group dedicated to uplifting the economic wellbeing of the Abagusii diaspora. He was also a recipient of many accolades for his many efforts made on behalf of the community. It is instructive for example that his 1992 masters thesis was entitled The Realities of the Informal Sector in Kenya and Its Economic Implications.

Pius Raini, co-owner of Time Motor Sales in Minneapolis and a prominent member of the Kenyan-American business community in Minnesota, recalled meeting Onchwari almost 20 years ago.

“He was so full of business ideas and how business could be used to make the community better,” he said. “His passion was really what struck me about the guy. One of the first businesses he started was car towing after he moved to Minnesota from Texas, and I tell you I have never seen someone so passionate about car towing. He was always looking further (down the road) than the rest of us, and we ended up being business partners along the way.’

“Erastus’ energy and ability to think big really inspired those of us in business, I think that Masters in Economics of his gave him some edge. On a personal note, I will miss his positivity, his energy and just as a friend. Our (business) community owes him a debt of gratitude and I am a better person for having known him.”

In his role as an entrepreneur, Onchwari sought to elevate the level of service offered by the businesses he was involved in. After starting his towing business, he followed that with an auto shop, a sprawling full-service shop that quickly became a go to place in Brooklyn Park. Always looking out for the next big thing, he handed over the business to his now grown daughter Judith who took it to the next level of service. Onchwari then moved into network marketing, specifically ACN, a multi-level marketing company finding particular success with the telecommunication side of that enterprise.

Global Health Services Inc. executive director Henry Momanyi was another person who became impressed with Onchwari and his energetic attempts to make Kenyan-Americans in Minnesota and the Americas an economic force to reckon with. Momanyi, who volunteers as the communications director and community organizer for Mwanyagetinge, has had a front-row seat for much of Onchwari’s work in improving the economic wellbeing of Kenyans in Minnesota. Momanyi says Onchwari, being a visionary, would be frustrated at times by the slow pace the community grabbed on to opportunities presented to it. He would know as he would talk to him daily “I will miss our conversations,” said Momanyi.

“Men especially used to frustrate Erastus and he would say it is only the women that seemed to get it. The man was always ahead of his time,” said Momanyi.

Dr. Nyariki Otoyota, adjunct professor at Metropolitan University’s College of Management, remembered the impact Onchwari’s dream of advancing the well-being of Kenyan-Americans had on the community.

“Besides the other businesses that he was involved in, he brought special energy to Guconet” Dr. Otoyota said. “The man was for the people. We started Guconet Holdings (a social enterprise) and he was in charge of commercial services, entrepreneurship and he was the managing director for the LLC that Guconet started. The guy was thinking big.’

“He did not want our people to suffer, he used to wonder why our people who are highly educated in this country should continue to suffer,” Otoyota said. “So we owe this man a lot. The kind of energy he brought to what he did is very rare in our community, as some people who make it get comfortable but not Erastus, he will not rest until everyone and not just his family was prospering.”

Dr. Pamela Obare Mogaka of Detroit recalled Onchwari’s incessant encouragement to get her to do better and the support he would give to her as the founder of the Diaspora Entertainment Awards & Recognition.

“Erastus was a very good friend of mine for over 18 years. I met him in Minnesota while I lived there for two years. A man with a very good heart, always advising others and I don’t remember a day he was mad at someone. Him and a group of us started a company and he brought some serious game that really brought us far,” said Dr. Mogaka.

The late Onchwari is survived by his wife of two decades Damaris and his two children Judith and Michael and grandchildren Michael Junior, Anthony, and Destany. Mother Jeliah Nyaera Onchwari. His siblings Joshua Onchwari, Gideon Onchwari, Hezron Onchwari, Stephen Onchwari, Gladys Onchwari. He was preceded in death by his father, Micah Onchwari and sister, Jane Onchwari. He is also survived by his fiancée, Dorothy Mckaney-Scott.

Funeral arrangements are pending. A memorial service and fundraiser to assist with the funeral will be held on Sunday, March 10, 2019 at 4:00PM.

Donations are being accepted in advance of the memorial via $CashApp: $OnchwariErastus

Erastus Onchwari Memorial Service and Fundraiser
Date: Sunday, March 10, 2019 @ 4:00 PM
Venue: 7377 Noble Ave.N., Brooklyn Park, MN 55443

Charles Garjay Goah, a beloved Liberian-American pastor who delivered the gospel to many as the longtime pastor of United Christian Fellowship Church in Minneapolis’ North Side, died on May 10. He was 55.

The cause was cancer, his wife of 20 years said.

For over two decades, pastor Goah led a ministry credited with winning converts with a style that went beyond the spiritual needs of those he ministered to. Even as he preached the gospel, he was known to have a keen interest in the civic and entrepreneurial endeavors of those he ministered to, whether they were his parishioners or not.

“He would ask me every time we met, how my business was doing and if there was anything he could do to help”, Theodore Morgan, a Liberian-American businessman, said.

Pastor Goah was also keen in building bridges beyond the Liberian community. Boyd Morson, a civic leader in the City of Brooklyn Park wrote in a Facebook message “Pastor Goah was a friend and supporter of mine. And he shared meaningful and uplifting words and conversations with me about my campaign and vision as Mayor in Brooklyn Park. Pastor Goah also sincerely thanked me for my presence, involvement and engagement within the Liberian community over the many years.”

Goah was born in Liberia’s capital city of Monrovia on June 11, 1962. He first came to the United States as a youth missionary in 1988 before the civil war broke out in his native Liberia. He had received some limited theological training in Liberia but got his full training as a minister while in the United States. He received his bachelors in theology while in Virginia and a master’s degree in theology from ACTS International Bible College in Blaine, Minnesota. He also received masters in global leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Goah met his wife Danuta in 1995. She had come to the United States on a similar youth mission trip through a Polish church.

“He came and visited me and my family in my hometown of Gorzow Wielkopolski in Poland and we got married in 1997 in my hometown,” Mrs. Goah said.

At the time of his death, Goah was enrolled at Bethel University pursuing his doctorate. He had already completed a year of the program. He is survived by his wife Danuta, son Jakub, daughter Mayetti, his mother Julia Gaarduwar who lived with them, his brother in Liberia Stanley Goah and a large extended family.

The late Goah was also an author. He authored two books. The first one he wrote was Adultery: A Contemporary Interpretation. In March 2017, he authored From Praise to Petition: Experiencing the Power and Passion of Prayer, which is still available in bookstores, and Amazon.

He was also an active member of the Liberian Ministerial Alliance in Minnesota as well as the Brooklyn Area Ministerial Association.

He was known to preach love and peace and was prominent during difficult times that the community faced.

In 2015, he was the presiding pastor at the high profile funeral of Henry T. McCabe, a Minnesota Department of Revenue Corporate Auditor, who had been missing for almost a month and was discovered dead on Rush Lake in New Brighton. The death that shook the Liberian and wider African community to its core. Delivering the sermon at the McCabe funeral, pastor Goah preached from among other books in the bible, the book of Luke, directing mourners specifically to chapter 7. That chapter tells the story of how Jesus raised the son of the widow of Nain from the dead. Goah said death for those left behind many times leads to suffering but like what Jesus did with the widow, he showed compassion towards her.

“In our darkest moments, where there is the presence of Jesus, there cannot be hatred,” Goah told mourners.

The funeral service will be on June 16, according to Reverend Francis Tabla in a statement on behalf of the funeral planning committee. The June 16 funeral will be preceded by the viewing of the body on June 15 at United Christian Fellowship Church.

Updated details on the viewing, the wake and funeral of the late pastor Charles Garjay Goah can be found at this link.

Seth Eggessa, whose wide smile and infectious laugh was a fixture at Twin Cities community and charitable events and who was very articulate in explaining the challenges Africa faced to prospective donors and supporters, died on Friday, January 6. He was 67.

His death was confirmed by Paul Musherure, a Twin Cities dentist and fellow Ugandan. The cause was abdominal cancer.

After a brief banking career in Uganda, he arrived in Minnesota in 1977 to attend the University of Minnesota Duluth where he graduated with a BA in Business Administration. After graduation, he pursued a career in the financial services industry where he found success.

The financial services sector with its emphasis on having one’s affairs in order before you die certainly had an impact on the late Eggessa.

For many years he worked for Ameriprise Financial, the successor to American Express Financial Advisors which was a subsidiary of American Express Company. He would exhort fellow community members to set up retirement plans for themselves and college funds for their children.

“We have not had to do any fundraising within the community to give him a proper send-off,” his friend of 17 years Dr.Musherure told Mshale. Musherure said the late Eggessa had set up his affairs in order with proper instructions on how to access his funds and accounts to ensure a proper burial. “He certainly lived what he preached.” He never wished to be a burden to anyone especially after death.

Despite his many years in America he never forgot the people he left behind in his native Uganda. He would lead what he used to call book missions there as he sought to improve literacy among the youth. He was a longtime board member at Books for Africa, the largest shipper of donated school textbooks to the African continent.

In 2010 in a feature in a St. Paul suburban newspaper Lillie News, after a successful delivery of a container of 22,000 textbooks from Books for Africa to Uganda that he helped organized through a grant from the Roseville Rotary Club, he said  “(I am) just a servant with a passion based on the immense poverty that still exists in Uganda”

He would make numerous such trips to Uganda to supervise the delivery and distribution of books.

By the time of his passing he was instrumental in the shipping of well over 70,000 textbooks to the Tororo region of Uganda where he hailed from and to the capital city Kampala through a project with the United States Peace Corps.

He was an active Rotarian and a member of the Roseville Rotary Club, according to Bradley Kirscher, president of the Roseville Rotary Club.

“When I joined the club back in 2010, he was the membership director,” Kirscher said underscoring the importance Eggessa attached to the sustenance of the club by recruiting new members. During his time as the membership director, he became very active in Rotaract, the Rotary-sponsored service club for young professionals and an important pipeline for future Rotarians.

Together with the club, they built a multi-use building in Tororo that housed both a clinic and library.

Another Rotarian, Dave Schafer of the Rotary Club of Woodbury worked closely with Eggessa when his Woodbury Rotary Club joined forces with the Roseville Rotarians to sponsor the Tororo project through the Rotary Global Grant. With electricity a challenge in most of Africa, Seth was innovative with a plan to install solar lighting.

“Seth was good about asking for contributions,” said Schafer.

A kidney transplant in the early 2000s gave him a renewed appreciation for life and spurred him to live life to the fullest. He went on to marry the woman that gave him the kidney. The marriage did not last and he never remarried but in conversations he would describe in affectionate terms the “woman that gave me some more years.”

Rosemond Owens, the jocular former president of the board at Books for Africa from Ghana would normally rib him on how she was going to find him a wife. On receiving news of his death, she deadpanned in an email that “I thought this will be the year(in finding him a wife).”

The beneficiaries of that energy after the kidney transplant were the children of Uganda through his involvement with Books for Africa and the Rotary Club of Roseville. Tom Warth, founder of Books for Africa described him as an indefatigable worker for his community and that “nothing slowed him.” Mr. Warth got the inspiration to start Books for Africa in 1988 during a visit to Uganda.

He had one estranged son from a previous marriage. He would dot over the many nephews and nieces he had, proudly sharing their accomplishments with friends like a proud father would. He is survived by his four sisters Lydia A. Jones, Faith J. Tumwebaze and her husband James, Judith N. Ojambo, Mary Rager and her husband Jimmy. Seth is also survived by his brother Clement O. Ojambo and Clement’s wife Margaret as well as many nieces and nephews.

Patrick Plonski, the current executive director at Books for Africa described him as a valued and dedicated member of the Books for Africa family that everyone liked.

“His dedication to education in Africa and especially his home country of Uganda was inspirational to us all. He will be sorely missed,” Plonski said.

Books for Africa, where the late Eggessa was a board member for five years, has established the Seth Eggessa Memorial Libraries project in honor of his service to the organization and children of Uganda. You can read more about it in the organization’s Uganda project page here.

Details for a memorial service are below.

Memorial Service

Seth Eggessa Memorial Service
Date: Saturday, January 14, 2017
Location: North Heights Lutheran Church
2701 Rice Street, Roseville, MN 55113
Time: Visitation @ 10:00am Memorial Service @ 11:00am

Note: The author served with the late Seth Eggessa on the board of Books for Africa and parts of this obituary are based on details shared between the two.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story stated Mr. Eggessa’s age as 67. Mshale has since learnt that he was 65. The story has also been corrected to state that indeed the deceased had a son and was not childless as previously stated in the story.