Founded in January 2019 after Irwin’s first visit to the country a year prior, Selfless Solutions operates two main initiatives designed to expand educational opportunities for local children.

Although the charity is nominally seven years old, Irwin considers it two years since he was able to take it from a “side thing,” to his full-time pursuit. In that time, Selfless Solutions has grown from one paid employee to 15 people on its payroll, and has expanded the scope of its programming.

Charity work

The Selfless Sponsor program provides scholarships for underprivileged Tanzanian children to attend higher-quality private schools instead of overburdened public options.

A group of hikers and porters take a photo at Mount Kilimanjaro. One of the primary fundraiser events is Kili Climb for Kids, which involves visiting Selfless Solutions-supported schools in Arusha and scaling the 5,895-meter Mount Kilimanjaro. Courtesy photo

Through this effort, Selfless Solutions was able to build their own pre-primary school in Sing’isi and has allowed over 130 children to attend private schools in the Arusha area.

The E-Shuleni program aims to address a critical language barrier that prevents many Tanzanian children from attending secondary school.

According to Irwin, due in part to the colonial legacy of the east African country, which gained its independence from England in the 1960s, most governmental functions in Tanzania are conducted in English, while local affairs are held either in Swahili or a smaller tribal dialect.

This two-tier structure has led to public elementary education being taught in Swahili, with secondary education almost exclusively in English.

“It’s a huge problem,” Irwin said.

Since qualified English instructors are rare in Tanzania, this has led many children to be unable to proceed with their education beyond an elementary level, creating a language-induced bottleneck.

According to Irwin, less than 10% of the country is conversationally fluent in English.

To combat this, Selfless Solutions launched the E-Shuleni program to purchase tablets for primary school children to use in order to learn English via a dedicated online program, bypassing the need for a language instructor.

“What we’re trying to do is give the kids a way, or give the country a way, that they can keep it in Swahili, but be bilingual and learn Swahili and English,” Irwin said.

This allows students to have the tools “in their own hands” and learn at their own pace, Irwin said.

“We’re working on a third one, that’s going to provide young entrepreneurs in Tanzania funding and training to launch their own businesses,” Irwin said.

This effort is in collaboration with the Prospr Foundation, an Australian nonprofit that is active in supporting local entrepreneurs in Tanzania.

According to Irwin, Prospr offers the “capacity and resources” in the entrepreneurial space that allowed him to expand the reach of Selfless Solutions.

“Our purpose statement is ‘every person deserves an opportunity to reach their full potential,'” Irwin said, adding that Selfless Solutions is not limited to educational outreach, but instead is interested in providing “opportunities” across a number of different fronts.

“We started in education, because that’s the gateway to pretty much all opportunities … but we’ll put in any solution that is gonna create opportunities for people,” Irwin said.

While the final program is not yet complete, Irwin said it will potentially be named Shariki, a different spelling of the local word for “to share.”

“The goal for that is to start giving loans out in January 2025,” Irwin said.

One of the things Selfless Solutions strives for is to take the best aspects of American and Tanzanian culture and blend them together in the organization’s culture, Irwin said.

“It’s really cool to be able to experience both, that’s why I do it,” Irwin said.

According to Irwin, working with the Tanzanian locals has given him a new appreciation for cultural differences, and how the American way of doing things may not be better inherently.

“It’s incredibly fulfilling, incredibly interesting, everyday I’m learning something new,” Irwin said.

Support from the States

As an Altoona native, Irwin’s hometown is never far from his mind, even when he is halfway around the world.

Since his family still lives in Blair County, Irwin splits his time between the two locales, living approximately 10 months of the year in Tanzania and two months in the states.

“At this point, I keep having to come home for my siblings’ weddings, this is the second June in a row one of my sisters is getting married,” Irwin said. “Also it’s nice to come home for the holidays.”

During his time in Altoona, Irwin reconnects with his roots and fundraises for Selfless Solutions.

“Every time I come back, it hits me in a different way how different it is,” Irwin said.

One of the primary fundraising events for Selfless Solutions took place earlier this year, when a group of 11 Americans participated in a Kili Climb for Kids event, visiting Solutions-supported schools in Arusha and scaling the 5,895-meter Mount Kilimanjaro.

When self-described “avid” hikers Travis and Katy McCabe, who own Green Bean Coffee in Altoona, heard about the experience, they leapt at the opportunity to knock off one of their “bucket list” items.

The McCabes were first introduced to Irwin through his father Patrick Irwin Sr., who knew his son was looking for an expert advisor for a new coffee venture.

After the initial introduction, the McCabes worked with Irwin to design the trip.

“It was an opportunity to knock a bucket list item off … and to do it for a phenomenal cause,” Travis McCabe said, “it was a win-win.”

The McCabes flight departed from Dallas on Feb. 2, and was where they would return on Feb. 17 via Ethiopian Airlines.

The first portion of their trip was spent in Arusha, seeing the work of Selfless Solutions firsthand.

“We were totally ingrained in Africa, and seeing their living conditions, seeing the kids they sponsored,” McCabe said, “it was absolutely amazing seeing their progress.”

According to McCabe, it was really “solidifying” to see the results of the organization’s work, since some charities can be obtuse with where their donations are employed.

Afterward, they made the 50-mile journey west to the foot of the mountain to begin their climb. Similar to an ascent of Mount Everest in Tibet, the climb is made with the assistance of a team of local porters, McCabe said.

These porters would carry the supplies to set up camp and cook meals for the seven-day journey.

“They don’t have the best quality climbing equipment, but they do it with a smile,” McCabe said.

McCabe said that the welcoming attitude of the porters was reflected in the friendly faces of everyone they met in Tanzania.

“I’ve never encountered a group of people who had so little but were able to give everything they had,” McCabe said.

After they descended from the mountain, the McCabes toured several local coffee farms in order to find the ideal partner for the collaborative “Baba Simba” coffee brand they had planned with Irwin.

Baba Simba, which stands for respected/father lion, will contain exclusively Tanzanian beans and will be sold at Green Bean locations starting in late 2024, with a portion of the proceeds going to Selfless Solutions.

“It was one of the best weeks of my life, I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” McCabe said.

Selfless Solutions will host its third annual Night in Africa event, slated for 7 p.m. June 28 at the Fiore Farm in Hollidaysburg. It will feature authentic African food and a silent auction to raise money for the organization’s efforts in Tanzania.

With the money raised from the Night in Africa, Irwin said he wants to reinvest it into Selfless Solutions to grow organizational capacity and expand the number of students enrolled in the sponsor and English education programs.

“The goal is just to create as many opportunities as we can for people,” Irwin said.

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.