To say that Joshua Tahinduka is a natural communicator would be something of an understatement. 

Tahinduka is blessed with the gift of the garb – that natural and effortless ability to speak easily in a way that will leave a listener hanging on to his every word. 

And that is all that he needed to emerge overall winner of the first ever Best Toastmasters East Africa (BOTEA) public speech contest in Nairobi last month. 

Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of helping members improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills. 

The organization boasts more than 332,000 members worldwide, who hone their speaking and leadership skills by attending one of the 15,400 Toastmasters clubs spread out in 135 countries. 

The organization’s mantra is; "Every Toastmaster’s journey begins with a single speech.”

The Best Toastmasters East Africa (BOTEA) event occurred on June 25th, 2016 at the Nairobi Safari Club. It brought together Toastmasters clubs from across the region (Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda), while their Burundian counterparts could not make it owing to the volatile political situation in the country. 

As president of the Kigali-based 1Rwanda Toastmasters Club, the biggest in the country, Tahinduka headed a Rwandan delegation that included 11 other Toastmasters drawn from the different clubs in the country. Of these, only five participated in the contest, while the rest were there to simply support and cheer on the rest. 

Though he was the only one that managed to go to the next level, he insists that the entire Rwandan team "made great and tremendous speeches”.

Been there, done that

This was the second time that Rwandan Toastmasters were traveling to Nairobi for such a contest. The first was last year, when the event was still known as Best of Toastmasters Kenya. 

"That is when they actually learnt that there were Toastmasters clubs in Rwanda. We had three minutes to make a presentation about Rwanda, and that shone a little bit of light,” he remarks retrospectively. 

Upon winning the contest, Tahinduka triumphantly took to his Facebook page, where he posted:

"Rwanda once again shines its light as we bring the Best of Toastmasters East Africa (BOTEA) speech contest winner trophy home. It was a tough but worthwhile journey for the 12 of us. My sincere gratitude goes to first the fantastic 12 for representing Rwanda in Nairobi, the best Toastmasters club in the world today; 1Rwanda Toastmasters Club and all Rwanda Toastmasters for the unfailing support and constant belief in me. Special thanks to my mentor Mr. Matthew Kleinosky and all those that contributed to the BOTEA conference 2016 . It would rather be unfaithful of me not recognize and thank Imbuto Foundation for not only introducing but continuously supporting Toastmasters clubs in Rwanda.”

Started with Imbuto Foundation

"The whole story of Toastmasters in Rwanda will always begin with the Imbuto Foundation, in 2011,” Tahinduka starts:

That time, he was a First Year Telecommunications Engineering student at the then Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), now University of Rwanda’s College of Science and Technology (CST). 

"Imbuto Foundation came to us with a great idea. They were looking for 20 bright students with a minimum in communication skills that could be trained or given the opportunity to be leaders and to expand and give more opportunities to fellow students. 

They got 20 of us and sponsored us with materials for Toastmasters (it’s a membership-based organization and we pay membership to get materials from Toastmasters International) so Imbuto brought all this together and they sponsored three Toastmasters clubs in Rwanda–one at the former School of Finance and Banking (SFB), one in Butare, and the third one at KIST back then.”

The foundation went further and flew in an experienced Toastmaster from Kenya who gave the students motivation and basically oriented them into the whole system of Toastmasters.

How Toastmasters clubs work

The clubs typically execute their tasks in small sessions of between 20-40 people that get together to know each other and share knowledge. 

A typical session may last for about two hours, depending on the number of attendees. These are organized in three major categories; 

Structured speeches, impromptu speeches, while the third and most important part is giving feedback to other toastmasters. There is a specific person chosen to give speech evaluation after every speaker. 

"The pinnacle of every career is leadership, and the way that you give it back to the team makes a whole difference. You either give feedback to your team and it collapses, or the feedback propels them to higher levels of success.” Tahinduka contends. 

"Giving feedback is an art that we learn from Toastmasters. We make sure to give not just motivation, but also make recommendations and suggest areas for improvement.

So Toastmasters is really about communication and leadership, because the two really go hand-in-hand.”

Toastmasters in Rwanda

I attended the first Rwanda Toastmasters Club weekly session on the night of Wednesday, July 13 at their new meeting venue –the Hilltop Hotel and Country Club in Remera. 

Tahinduka, the club’s president opens the session with warm welcome remarks. 

Then there is the Toastmaster of the day –what you would call a Master of Ceremonies ordinarily, who comes and takes the session over from the president. 

This MC shows up and in turn invites a general evaluator onto stage –this is like the team leader for evaluators.

He invites his team members and gives them an opportunity each to tell fellow toastmasters what their respective responsibilities will be, and what they expect out of the people they will be evaluating. 

At the end of the session members’ listening skills get tested. There is someone called a hack master who makes a record of whatever has been said, and at the end of the session tests the listening skills of members. 

There is also a time manager, someone in charge of grammar, an ‘aah –counter’ (looks out for hesitation and redundancies in speech. The ahh .. counter takes note of all these words that actually don’t make sense in a speech –and encourages the speaker to reduce them.

About Joshua Tahinduka

Born in Western Uganda (Ntungamo district), he attended Ntare School and Mbarara High School.

He graduated with a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from University of Rwanda’s College of Technology and Engineering in 2014.

He currently works with a local NGO, FXB as Project Development Officer.

Growing up, he wanted to become an Engineer. "I felt I loved the vibe of being an engineer but in the end what manifested was different because I love to teach. 

I love to explain concepts to people and to speak to people. As I grew up I could see these two passions head in different directions. 

I became a people-person more than a machine-oriented person. I found myself getting drawn to more of the physical communication as opposed to telecommunication. But clearly there is a linkage with telecommunication because I loved networking and I loved to see people communicate to each other.” 

At the age of about 11 he started to gather kids from his neighborhood and teaching them.

"I was really passionate about repeating the concepts and I think really the ability for me to communicate was manifested at this point. Later on Toastmasters helped me to hone and develop my talent even better but I would say right from childhood I was meant to be a public speaker.” 

For me it’s more about why we communicate, because I am an all time student of leadership and I love to learn a lot about leadership. And as a leader if you speak and motivate and inspire a team to achieve a task, that is the ultimate satisfaction. I derive my satisfaction from seeing fellow toastmasters grow from one point to another. One person once said that you have not lived until you’ve done something for someone that can’t repay you, and that to me is what living is, and that kind of living is what brings satisfaction to me.” 

He reveals that being an international club, members are free to move everywhere where there is a Toastmasters club: "I was in Nairobi and I met Toastmasters from ten different clubs and I can go to any of those clubs at any time and make my speeches and get evaluation. 

I got a trophy and great networks, but the biggest of all is the reputation that comes with winning. There is no monetary reward, but there are all these implied benefits. I can say that I am now legitimate because I now speak from an East African perspective.”

He adds that all one needs to become a Toastmaster is the commitment –that desire to become a better public speaker and leader.

"We’re planning a national speech contest in September where all the Toastmasters in Rwanda will come to participate just like it was at Toastmasters East Africa. It will also be a chance to invite new friends to come and see what Toastmasters is all about and how they can join any of the clubs. Every district must have a club, and that means at least 30 clubs.”