Meet Two Young Entrepreneurs from Kenya: Stories of Tenacity and Courage
Read All PostsPART I: “I Can Do Better. I Know I Can.”
I admit it. I was always ambivalent about the whole notion of starting up a new business and going out on my own. I could see the advantages of not having a boss and the exhilaration of taking risks. But I’m just not comfortable jumping into the unknown. On a recent trip to Nairobi, I had the opportunity to meet with some of the young people who had graduated from an entrepreneurship training program supported by IYF and Microsoft. One of the many things I learned is that being an entrepreneur in this city is often not a personal choice. It’s a necessity if you want to have even a small chance of surviving here. Another insight I gained: with so few chances for success, extra training and support can make an enormous difference in the life of these aspiring young entrepreneurs.
On my second day in Nairobi, a group of us got into a somewhat cramped car to drive out to visit a community school that had been launched by Julia Namale, a young entrepreneur who is one of our graduates. We initially got lost, but finally turned down a dirt road into one of Nairobi’s most impoverished settlements, called Mukuru Kwa Njenga. Due to a heavy rain the night before, the road had turned into a sea of thick black mud, with piles of garbage mixed in. Huge potholes made our progress extremely slow and precarious, and sometimes chickens, goats and push carts blocked the way. Groups of children would wave at us, shouting the now familiar “How Are You?” greeting. At one point the car got stuck in a particularly deep rut – but we were finally able to proceed. Finally, after getting out of the car and walking on foot -- leaping from one stone to another in desperate hopes of avoiding the mud – we found what we were looking for: a sign marking the entrance of the St. Elizabeth Xaviour School.
Made out of a corrugated iron shed – the school houses six small classrooms filled with perhaps 60 or 70 children working side by side at long wooden desks. Julia came out to meet us with a huge welcoming smile. Having grown up herself in a very poor community, she knew how hard it was for impoverished families to afford to send their children to school. So using the skills she learned in the training program – including how to develop a business plan and create a budget – she has helped open two schools in these highly marginalized neighborhoods over the past few years, where parents only pay a few dollars a month.
Julia talked about her own rough upbringing in a rural village in western Kenya, where she had to take care of her farm and household chores before she began her studying … and often had to get up at 4:30 am to finish her homework. The one belief she held on to during this bleak time in her life was “I can do better. I know I can.”
Julia told us there were very few schools available to the children living in these outlying settlements -- and that she’s still trying to raise money to support the two she has already opened. “These children are smart,” she said, “and one of them could be the next president of Kenya. But not if they can’t go to school.”
Walking back to our car through the mud suddenly seemed a lot less tedious to us.
Stay tuned for PART II to be published tomorrow...