Episode 24: Florence's Business to Counsel and Inspire Young Girls in Uganda

In this episode, Aida Embaye, HerStart Social Entrepreneurship Fellow in Mpigi, Uganda, speaks with Florence Nakamya, founder of the Transformers Academy – a social business that aims to motivate, counsel and guide young girls and women in her community for success. Florence talks about her experience seeing girls being misled at a young age and her hopes to see young women thrive in her community.

Transcript

Introduction: 0:04

Welcome to Youth Challenge International's HerStart HerStory Podcast Series. Youth Challenge International, or Y C I, launched the HerStart Innovate the Future Program in 2020. As part of our initiative to advance women's equality globally. Our goal is to provide 10,000 women in Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda with the resources and supports they need to successfully launch and grow their social businesses. We are sharing real stories of young women who are leading change in their communities. YCI's HerStart Innovate The Future Program is funded in part by the Government of Canada to progress Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy. Learn more at yci.org or herstart.org.

Interviewer - Aida : 1:02

Hello everyone, my name is Aida Embaye, and I'm a Social Entrepreneurship Fellow with Youth Challenge International's, HerStart program in Uganda. Today I'm speaking to Florence Nakamya about her business, Transformers Academy. Florence is a participant in the HerStart Grow Your Social Venture program anda recipient of the HerStart Catalyst Fund. We a re speaking today at the Social Innovation Academy, o ne of HerStart's partners in Mpigi, Uganda. Florence, thank you for joining me today.

Interviewee - Florence: 1:32

You're welcome Aida.

Interviewer - Aida : 1:33

Tell me about yourself.

Interviewee - Florence: 1:35

Right. My name Nakamya Florence, uh, thirty-three year old female Ugandan who hold, uh, diploma in secondary education with biology and sports science. As my teaching subjects, I also found the Transformers Academy, so I'm the founder and the chief administrative officer of that academy.

Interviewer - Aida : 2:02

Your business is called Transformers Academy. Why that name?

Interviewee - Florence: 2:07

Right. The business's name is Transformers Academy simply because I got the name from the word transform and I wanted to change the lives of young girls. The Transformers Academy deals with counseling and guidance, uh, with girls between 12 to 25 years of age and actually offer appropriate age best counseling and guidance services.

Interviewer - Aida : 2:35

What does a typical session look like? What do you guys talk about? What is the counseling about?

Interviewee - Florence: 2:41

Our counseling sessions are actually age based whereby we group up these girls according to their, to actually what they need to hear about as far as their age is concerned, and this drives them to the next sessions as they grow up. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So we counsel them basically on lifestyles, how they can maneuver through the temptations of the youth the youthful challenges, and so on. That is how a typical session looks like. We counsel them basing on their age limits. Hmm. Yeah, so we group them 12 to 16, then 17 to 19 schooling, then 20 to 25, both schooling and then schooling. Yeah.

Interviewer - Aida : 3:27

Were you always pa passionate around this? I know you were a teacher, but how did this, this business, how did it come about?

Interviewee - Florence: 3:34

I started teaching from my vocation of senior six and I began teaching t hese young children, uh, in the nursery sections and then the primary sections t ill when I got someone to sponsor me out to attain t hat diploma in secondary education. Then I began teaching the secondary levels and then i t s o happened that I met girls and children that I h ad taught from the lower academic levels and I h ad p lanned to teach them in the secondary levels, but then to my dismay, I met, I found that u h, some of these girls were dropping o ut o f schools due to e arly unwanted p regnancies and o n interviewing them, t hey were like,"it wasn't our will. We didn't wish this to happen. But then we were misled by some people who could actually, they t hought t hey were guiding us, but again, t hey, we found out that the counseling they were giving us was inappropriate to our age and it d rop us out". So that's why I decided to come up with this idea of counseling girls. But then in the beginning it was just a n idea b ecause I couldn't start it up as a business. I didn't know anything about it being a business, but I had the feeling for counseling and guiding these girls.

Interviewer - Aida : 4:58

Why is it important to you to work with young girls specifically around preventing early pregnancy and school dropout? What is the personal connection to you?

Interviewee - Florence: 5:08

As we say, I happened to to to leave school because my dad had died and so my mom did not have the capability to make me go through the other academic levels. So that made me to think that girls and ladies play a big role towards the wellbeing of their children and when girls are not well off and when girls are not prepared for that future life of supporting themselves and their offsprings, maybe it can be difficult for their children to maneuver through this world without the fathers. Therefore, that's why I came up with dealing with the girls specifically to see that their lives in the future are a bit changing.

Interviewer - Aida : 5:55

So it turned from an an idea and now it's a business. In terms of HerStart, how did you end up joining the program?

Interviewee - Florence: 6:04

Uh, in 2019? It so happened that we had that lockdown of the COVID issues and we happened to get the people from the Social Innovation Academy who came to our village that is Boza, and they started engaging us into those trainings in the HerStart program. And then that is when we got to know about, I got to know about the HerStart, and then after having started in the HerStart programs, I saw that my idea that I had before for counseling and guiding girls could actually be turned into a business idea. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that is when I began up the academy and mm-hmm.<affirmative> the business idea. Yeah.

Interviewer - Aida : 6:51

What kind of impacts have you been seeing with the women you've been working with?

Interviewee - Florence: 6:56

Uh, since I'm working with both the schooling and the non schooling, uh, the impact, first of all, I'm seeing many girls who are schooling, uh, insisting and they're saying,"what come, what may we have to continue with our academics". And more so, uh, as far as the new in the secondary educational lower is concerned, these girls are engaged in the skilling issues. So they find out that when they join our counseling sessions, they are actually, uh, being counseled and at the same time being helped to begin up their different projects in their schools where they, they study from, and therefore the impact is that many girls are insisting onto their academics. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and then the non-schooling ones have been hoped to begin up or to be skilled in different skills like hairdressing, like tailoring, and actually we give them opportunities to give out their ideas, what would they want to engage in, and then that is the area we deal with them, and if we don't have any technical personnel in that idea, then we help them develop their own ideas mm-hmm.<affirmative> to make sure that they can begin with it. Yeah.

Interviewer - Aida : 8:18

You mentioned schools. I'm curious to know in terms of response, how have schools and parents been re responding to your business? Id

Interviewee - Florence: 8:28

My target customers in the business were the parents with girl children and also the schools because in different schools we have girls there. So as far as the business is, both schools and parents are interested in the business and in the services. But then the only limitation that I'm having is that some schools have a fees schedule, which cannot favor them to petition some money for the, for the counseling and guidance sessions. And then you find that some of these parents that I'm dealing with, uh, these village parents who are also struggling to see that their children are well off, they are loving, they want their services, but they, they are not financially fine or well off. Therefore, finance from the parents is a big challenge with our business, but hopefully since they have the will we know they are going to support us and they're actually engaging themselves within the business. Yeah.

Interviewer - Aida : 9:37

So the response seems like it's positive and people want this service, but the financial issue is a challenge.

Interviewee - Florence: 9:45

Yes.

Interviewer - Aida : 9:45

In terms of other challenges, personal or business wise, like what are some of the challenges you faced?

Interviewee - Florence: 9:52

Uh, the other challenge I have is with the, as in personal challenges that I feel at times to, to timetable, well, for when to be at school and when to be for the counseling sessions. I find at times there is a collision in there. That is why I'm looking forward to see that I employ or engage more counselors specifically for counseling services with my clients. Yeah.

Interviewer - Aida : 10:20

So that's how you plan to grow your business. Right. So from the beginning, I imagine you've seen your business evolve mm-hmm.<affirmative> and it's changing. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So from where you are now mm-hmm.<affirmative> from where you were. Yeah. What is your hope for the future? Where do you see your business going?

Interviewee - Florence: 10:35

In the next five years? In the five years to come, I want to see that we've equipped this counseling group with the skilling materials so that the girls we counsel and the ladies we engage are skilled enough to sustain their lives, even if academically they have not succeeded, but they can still use the skills they obtained from our Transformers Academy to maneuver through the lives and they can support their lives plus the lives of their offsprings.

Interviewer - Aida : 11:08

So it started off with preventing pregnancy, preventing dropouts. Yeah. And now you asked what next, and you've gone to like a business incubation hub where they come up with their own businesses. Yeah. So how do you think your business is connected to gender equality?

Interviewee - Florence: 11:27

Once ladies are having some money and can support the lives of the people they're living with, at least there is a way these men are going to be having an, a changed mindset towards the female gender. Therefore, because they're seeing that impact onto the development part of the family or of the whole family with the hope of the ladies having got the their own income, then gender equality can be realized in there that we are both supporting ourselves for the wellbeing of the, of the family members.

Interviewer - Aida : 12:06

You're so passionate and it's important to share your message and you do this through your counseling with your woman, but for a more wider audience, what would you like to share? Maybe to inspire?

Interviewee - Florence: 12:17

With ladies, please. I just urge you whenever you get any opportunity to learn more, even if you are not academic, an academically graduate, even if you did not attain any higher academic levels. But whenever you get an opportunity to engage into different studies, like for these of the HerStart programs, the Social Innovation programs and others, which are coming up to help us maneuver through, please, I urge you ladies to attend to those studies since it is, it all begins with us, the ladies, we are the ones who know better our children, who can support them better. Actually, we are all what our children need. So please, ladies, I urge you to always attend to different sessions of any kind of teaching such that we can help our children.

Interviewer - Aida : 13:21

Thank you very much Florence

Speaker 3: 13:24

Welcome Aida.

Closing: 13:29

Thanks for joining us today and learning about how Youth Challenge International has partnered with young women to advance gender equality globally and create a social entrepreneurship ecosystem with the positive impact for all. If you enjoy this HerStart Innovate the Future podcast episode. Please subscribe and share our episodes on social media. A special thanks to the fellows that volunteered their time in Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda, who help create these episodes. YCI's HerStart Innovate the Future and Fellowship programs are funded through the Government of Canada's volunteer cooperation program, providing skilled Canadians opportunities to volunteer with global partners and advance Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy. Join us and thousands of young people around the globe creating a better future together. Learn more at yci.org or herstart.org.