… U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe Celebrates Freedom Mukanga, 2025 Impact Award Winner
BY NATHAN GUMA
WHEN serial entrepreneur Freedom Mukanga and his wife first set their eyes on Cheza Village, they saw an opportunity to improve the lives of people in the area.
“This journey started when I got married. My wife and I decided to use the proceeds from our wedding to rent land in Cheza. The community there loved us, but we saw that it was very marginalised,” he says.
Now, Mukanga looks back at the land rental as one of the main drivers of the changemaking work he has been doing over the past years.
On January 21, Mukanga was honoured by the United States Embassy in Zimbabwe after winning the 2025 Mandela Washington Fellowship Impact Award.
The award, presented annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, recognizes one outstanding alumnus for exceptional leadership, community impact, and efforts to strengthen ties between African changemakers and U.S. partners.
Mukanga is Zimbabwe’s first recipient of the award since the Mandela Washington Fellowship programme began in 2014.
A 2022 Mandela Washington Fellow on the University of Iowa Business Track, Mukanga is also a leading advocate for the advancement of weather observation systems in Africa.
He is the founder of FreedPer Scientific, a company working to expand local weather stations and hydrometeorological data networks across Zimbabwe, with plans to scale across sub-Saharan Africa.
The initiative, which he projects to reach 1.4 million people by 2030, aims to strengthen agricultural decision-making, early warning systems, and rural community resilience.
Through strategic collaborations with U.S. partners, including AEM (Davis Instruments) and Synoptic Data, he has helped strengthen weather data collection systems and improve disaster preparedness in Zimbabwe, demonstrating the practical impact of U.S.–Africa partnerships.
However, he says Cheza was his major starting point.
“Going into places like Cheza, there is always a lot to start. I spoke to previous Mandela Washington Fellows, and they said, what you are doing is worthy to be part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship story,” he says.
“That’s how I got into the story. I got some mentorship, so when I went there, I was well prepared. That’s where I learnt about pitching.”
In 2022, after completing his leadership institute in Iowa, Mukanga deepened his development work back home.
“When I got back, my pastor and mentor Muss Maramwidze introduced me to Peter Cunningham, of Sondelani Ranching (Pvt) Ltd, part of the Hamara Group. But unfortunately, since he is based in Bulawayo, he introduced me to his colleague, Alan Norton, who is based here in Harare,” he says.
“He is one of the pioneers of Foundations for Farming (Farming God’s Way) -commonly known in Zimbabwe as Pfumvudza. So, my first project post the fellowship was teaching communities to farm using zero tillage.”
Mukanga later won the Mandela Washington Fellowship Reciprocal Exchange programme, which brings U.S. officials to Zimbabwe. Through the programme, he partnered with the University of Iowa’s Jayne Meacham, who travelled to Zimbabwe, where they implemented training in entrepreneurship and chicken production for rural women.
The programme exceeded expectations.
“We had budgeted for 25 people, but when the project started, people had walked all the way from Musana and other surrounding areas. But, through assistance from the University of Iowa and Hamara, we managed to accommodate everyone,” he says.
“And, we managed to give everyone who came inputs, feed and vaccines, so that they can implement what we had taught them. So, now we have 10 families that are running their projects.”
Following this, Mukanga led another major entrepreneurial programme, working with 50 fellows from across the continent.
United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Pamela Tremont, says Mukanga has consistently served as a bridge between the United States and Zimbabwe through the initiatives he has implemented.
“In 2023, Freedom and his team successfully implemented an Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund project training more than 400 entrepreneurs across Zimbabwe working with fellow exchange alumni,” said Ambassador Tremont during the award presentation at the U.S. Embassy in Harare.
“In 2024, he worked closely with the Embassy’s Public Diplomacy Section to host the Gilman Alumni Food Security Seminar, further expanding alumni-led impact. Freedom executed the seminar so effectively that colleagues in Washington, D.C. recognized it as a best practice for both its strong content and its seamless organisation.”
“As an alumnus, Freedom has continued to partner with the U.S. Department of State to expand the reach of U.S. exchange programmes in Zimbabwe – supporting recruitment, sharing his exchange experience, and contributing to programme implementation.”
Mukanga believes his work can further strengthen U.S.-Zimbabwe ties, including through trade and innovation partnerships.
Yet, for him, it all traces back to Cheza, the place which formed the foundation for national and regional impact.
