Impact Masters Podcast
We focus on the tech ecosystem by creating and disseminating knowledge. We tell authentic stories, acknowledging and preserving history, embracing civilization, and encouraging technology and innovation. In all this, we point out the impact and the actionable points. At Impact Masters we are disrupting the status quo: Body, Mind, and Spirit.
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Impact Masters Podcast
#47 IMPACT MASTER KHALILA MBOWE (KELLZ): FROM ARUSHA TO AFRICA'S CREATIVE ECONOMY AND TECH FOR GENDER #africa #innovation #socialimpact #entrepreneurship
Ever wondered how an introverted soul can still make waves in the world of social innovation? Khalila Mbowe, affectionately known as Kellz, tracking her roots in Machame in Kilimanjaro, joins us to unravel her journey from the bustling streets of Arusha, Tanzania, to the dynamic landscape of Africa's creative economy and tech for gender. Kellz opens up about her paradoxical personality—an introvert with a love for people—and how it has shaped her connections and independence. From overcoming bullying and trauma during her school years to the challenges of making friends and valuing authentic conversations, Kellz’s story is one of resilience and personal growth.
Get ready to be moved by Kellz's candid recounting of her university days in Malaysia, where cultural and educational adjustments were just the tip of the iceberg. Balancing academic responsibilities with social activities took on new meaning as she navigated the complexities of raising a child during her final year of university. We dive into the emotional and logistical struggles of seeking proper medical care for her son and how community support and spiritual growth played pivotal roles during this challenging period. Kellz’s experiences underscore the importance of safe professional environments and comprehensive safeguarding measures, especially as she transitioned into her role as a social entrepreneur.
Discover how Unleashed Africa Social Ventures became a beacon of hope for youth development, social innovation, and job creation. Kellz shares the inception stories of impactful solutions like the Rise Up platform, Africa’s first digital safe space for girls, and how personal sacrifices fueled these initiatives. Whether it’s the journey of securing funding, the power of community support, or the importance of creating meaningful, lasting change, this episode is a testament to the perseverance and tenacity required to overcome barriers and make a real impact. Don't just listen; be inspired to act and become part of the legacy of change.
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Thank you. Thank you so much. Welcome once again. Welcome, welcome Once again. We're in Tanzania, the blessed to have one and only, but before that, this is Michael Kimadi, your host, and this is Impact Masters, in collaboration with Africa's Talking Podcast. You'll find us on YouTube Talking Podcasts. You'll find us on YouTube, google Podcasts, apple Podcasts, spotify Podcasts, among as many other channels, such as TikTok, twitter and all the channels that you listen to.
Speaker 2:Our guest today is Papas Ground in Africa, social innovator, impact business. She has been building startups on creative economy for some time now and she's also interested in tech for gender, which she'll be telling us more about, and social impact business development. A great speaker and a writer Don't take my word for it and she ain't your ordinary executive. A global shaper at WEF Initiative. African Transformation Enabler Social entrepreneur out to build great African business brands. African Transformation Enabla Social Entrepreneur Out to Build Great African Business Brands Currently building Startup focused on the creative economy, tech for gender and impact business development. Welcome, khalil Mboy, or Kels, if you want. How are you Kels? Hey, hey, I just had to read that bio so that when I ask about you, you don't tell me that yeah. So, kels, let's start from the beginning. So here we try to tell our African story Just straight from where it started. Where did yours start?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a big one, man. No, break it down for me guy. Jeez, yeah, where were you born? That's a big one, man. No, break it down for me guy.
Speaker 2:Where were you born?
Speaker 3:I was born here. I was actually not born here in Dar, but I was born in Arusha, ngarinaro.
Speaker 2:So you know Wale Wachuga Archuga.
Speaker 3:I have no idea, I was born there and then I was imported, export, imported, exported to da, imported from marusha.
Speaker 2:So I grew up here in dar yeah, those guys have been trending for days like they have their own culture. That is really impressive yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah so when you talk about uh, that's the first thing that comes to my mind.
Speaker 3:Archuga.
Speaker 2:There's a way they talk. Do you know how they talk?
Speaker 3:I can't even do it. They're like their own country guy.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. So did you school here in Ndara all your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I went to school here in Ndara Primary school, I did Olympio, I did academic, I did St Mary's's, and then I went to a place called Sanya Yu in Moshi, vigigini Interia.
Speaker 2:That is primary.
Speaker 3:No, this was. This was form one and form two. I was supposed to go into form four in that school but I had to jump off because I fell ill. But it was in a village, somewhere to the sense at that. That time we didn't have a fence. I remember the headmistress used to tell us run away and see where you go. We didn't need a fence because where do you go? Yeah. So I went to school there and then I came back to Dar St Mary's, so largely I've schooled in TZ In Dar es Salaam, in TZ TZ, basically Dar es Salaam.
Speaker 2:So how was that experience like Going for, you know, the normal schools, as you call them, which I feel like at some point they were not. That normal Is St Mary's public.
Speaker 3:St Mary's is a private school, so I have a feeling I was a pioneer in all the schools I went to One of the pioneers. So academic Right now what academic international school is is not what it was when I was a student at academic. I was a student at academic when it was literally a classroom in somebody's garage. It was a startup. It was a startup when I was a student. We had little desks. That's when I was a student at academic and St Mary's. I joined St Mary's when it was in its first year. The founder of St Mary's at that time she used to come pick us with there was this little rundown heist and she used to pick up each student and we'd go in the early morning. We'd go to a bakery to get bread. That would be the bread that we'd use during break time and so we'd read and then we'd go to shops and buy margarine with her. Then we'd go all the way to school. It was like that.
Speaker 2:Sounds like fun. So were you like this laid back kid or just outgoing, as you are right now?
Speaker 3:Okay, so I In my head, I was very outgoing In my head, in my mind, I was very outgoing. I love people, but I'm one of those. I'm an introvert. I love my own space completely. I'd love to sit down, read and do nothing. I mean, if I, if I did not see humans for two months, I'd be fine oh a hundred percent.
Speaker 3:I'm just like I love you people, but I can take a holiday from human being, um, but at the same time, I love connecting with people, which is quite the paradox, but anyway. So I was a very I was a child who loved to connect, but I didn't know how to. I didn't know how to because of the way I think about things, the way I relate to things, the way I perceive things, I receive information, they go into my head and the way they come out is very different From the way a lot of the other children used to see it, and so, as a kid, I'd say I was the odd one out, always, always, I remember being bullied in school.
Speaker 2:Were you bullied.
Speaker 3:I was a bullied guy.
Speaker 2:In high school.
Speaker 3:No, this is in primary school. Which class? So, gosh, I was bullied from grade what? Three, grade two, three, four. And also because in St Mary's, at that time, I was one of the few kids who could speak English. And it's not somebody like oh, you spoke English because you went to these schools. No, I spoke English because my mom was a Chaga woman who made sure I could speak the language.
Speaker 2:How did she do that?
Speaker 3:So she had this Chaga accent but she realized that we love to read very early on and she instilled that culture very early on. There was no choice, there was no TV. We didn't have a TV and so there were books. So she would buy books and we used to love reading books. And then she I was raised by a single mom, by the way, and you know she had very modest earnings, and I say modest, with a capital and underlying that kind of life, and she bought she used little money that she had and she bought her a cassette recorder, and so what she used to tell us is read, then record yourself reading, then listen to yourself wow, right, that's how you practice.
Speaker 3:Yes, the words right that's a memory that I have. I do not know at what point, but kind of that's where I picked it up. That's where I picked it up. And then also another thing is the every single time we did manage to go to a house of somebody who owned a tv, news was in english. Tom and jerry was not speaking in swahili. True, true, tom was speaking in english, the burpees were in english, everything was in english. So in my mind, everything great is in english. And then when you happen to watch news with the adults, it is, it is shambles.
Speaker 3:I remember there was a show on itv called uh madira, ya wiki, I think something like that, and it was about the potholes, it was about corruption, it was about somebody did, somebody killed something. And as a child I'm like me I don't want this, I don't, this is not the life I want. And so of course I gravitated and of course this is like very childhood thinking I gravitated to everything that I felt was positive At that time. It was English focused, and so I found myself really moving in that direction.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's fascinating because, given what you're doing right now, it starts to make sense that this started from somewhere and your mom is still there, right, my mom passed in 2013. How was she with your siblings? How would you describe her?
Speaker 3:So my mother was a visionary, she was very innovative, she was a storyteller, she was a fireball. I'd say okay. So we say God never makes mistakes, but she was born in the wrong country. Honestly, she was that good the wrong country, honestly.
Speaker 2:She was that good.
Speaker 3:She was that good For what my mom brought to the table and what the circumstances she was born in gave to her. I believe that if she had been in a different environment, she would have done amazing things for this world. And that was the kind of person she was and, of course, just like me, she was not understood. For her to fit in anywhere, she had to try so hard. And you know, now, in retrospect, I can think of things that my mom used to do and think you know guy she had a hard time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you feel you're not understood.
Speaker 3:I mean most times right and much better nowadays. I mean most times right and much better nowadays. I used to have a very one of my prayer points right when I was younger. I used to like, I used to say God, teach me how to make friends, because I don't understand these people and they don't understand me. Teach me, like, what do I say? And so networking activities used to be and to some point right now still are just a point of anxiety. I'm like I don't want to talk to you because I'm going to ask you for something real. A lot of people don't want to have authentic conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people are living a lie.
Speaker 3:People are living the life that they feel they should be living. But I'm like let's try to have a real conversation. And one of the things I really appreciate about people, by the way and I have to say I appreciate about you as well is we can have like a real conversation.
Speaker 2:You are annoyingly honest you got punished for that not long time ago. I'll tell you off the mic I don't wanna be blocked from leaving this country, but I'll tell you that now that you're talking about honesty but I feel also people should appreciate honesty- because that moves you forward in a good way. But what can you do? You can't control other people's wishes and how they live. Right. Yeah, so you finished high school here in Dar right?
Speaker 3:I finished high school, yes, here in Dar.
Speaker 2:Did you go to UDCM?
Speaker 3:No, I did not, I was not going to, I was done, I was done, I was done. You know one of the really funny stories when I was in Form 6 here in TZ. When I was in Form 6, I remember there's a class that I went to and I'm not going for classmates who are with me that remember this story but there was a teacher who used to find offense in the fact that I used to ask many questions In English no, it was English medium, but then I used to ask questions, so the teacher would teach and I'm like well, I think I've read somewhere else and what you're saying is not necessarily factual, and so I would ask a question.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, you made enemies with your teacher.
Speaker 3:Like Kwakweli, they made enemies with me, With you, Me. I'm just asking a question as a student.
Speaker 2:I am asking you are curious to learn.
Speaker 3:Yes, and my curiosity was punished severely. I remember being in Form 4. And we had an English exercise to do and I remember, for the first time, I was like I was at one of my uncle's house and my uncle owned a computer. Do you know? Having a computer at home, I was in the clouds and I was like you know, let me type this homework. I typed it For the first time in my life, that was my first typewritten assignment and I printed it. I was time in my life, that was my first typewritten assignment and I printed it. I was feeling like a million bucks, mimi Yanni, bill Gates was me, I was, it was me.
Speaker 3:And I went to school and submitted it and I had researched and for the first time I had references. It was so good. You know what the teacher told me? He told me he said how dare you, how dare you bring something, uh, bring this work, and how dare you not write with your hand? And I said well, I've, I've, I've done one, two, three. And he said I remember being in the staff room and he said, um, oh, you didn't follow instructions and I said I wasn't at school. Um, so actually, the homework that we got, we got a little bit before. So we got like two weeks after before I submitted it and my friends, my classmates, submitted it a week that I wasn't in school because I was ill and I said I wasn't there when you're giving further instructions, but here's my work. And he said if you felt, if you felt you couldn't submit the work that was demanded, you should have died. I will never forget that man, ever.
Speaker 2:That's so cool.
Speaker 3:I was like I should have died because I typed an assignment and you don't want me to submit it in the way I've submitted it, yeah. So comments like that and some teachers can be really cruel and the kind of seed they plant in students, those are seeds that, unless intervention happens, a lot of young people do not get over that and those are the things that actually stifle innovation, Because people want to try something new. But you remember something somebody crazy and completely insecure about themselves told you and you don't move along.
Speaker 2:This is crazy. I hear you and for sure. If someone say that at that level, I can only imagine what went through your head and that you can't even forget it. I cried. Do you know what is common? Do you know what is common with the innovators? All of them have traumatizing stories or life that they lived in their past, and it should not be like that, right, I think. So that is the bad experience in your high school.
Speaker 3:Do you have a traumatizing story?
Speaker 2:I do. Okay, a lot of them Not even one Stories for days. Maybe I'll record soon. I keep telling all my guests that I'll do the podcast about myself. But the only problem I've not found a host.
Speaker 3:Hey, yeah, I shall travel all the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my stories are really really crazy. Yeah, not that crazy. Maybe I think they're crazy, but maybe not that crazy, I know a few of them.
Speaker 3:Oh, you do A few of them. Ah, yes, okay. Okay, I've heard a bit of your story.
Speaker 2:You have.
Speaker 3:I have.
Speaker 2:From your own lips. Ah, maybe that time we should have recorded, should have recorded, we should have.
Speaker 3:It could have made this easier, but no, no, no, no. It is great, because now we have a podcast waiting.
Speaker 2:Sounds good, let's make plans. But, kels, that's the bad side of high school, pasi or even primary. What's the good side? What's that? One thing or two things or three things that actually you remember in your high school or primary school that really even stopped the bullying?
Speaker 3:I feel like you're putting me on the spot.
Speaker 2:Please, if you don't want to answer, say something.
Speaker 3:Because I can't remember anything.
Speaker 2:You can't remember the good things.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, primary school again, I was the nerd. I was a nerd, I loved reading, I loved I have. So I don't want to tell bullying stories because I feel like it's kind of this victim mentality. But I remember this particular time when I was in boarding school. I remember I was in grade four. You know this traumatizing incidents, you remember, you remember, and even some of the people who did those, some of those things I meet nowadays and I'm like I remember of course I don't tell them, but yeah, but, um, I remember saying something or asking a question that somebody felt was offensive, which is really silly because in my head I was making a joke.
Speaker 3:It was a joke and she got the entire boys dormitory and the girls' dormitory to follow. You know how kids follow you in a crowd and they're jeering you and others were doing this like they're recording and they're like you know others were acting like the paparazzi. It's like my downfall. I was in grade four and also, it could be because I was in grade four, how old was I in grade four? I started grade one at four years old, so grade four I was eight. I was really young.
Speaker 2:No, that's still another bad experience it was terrible.
Speaker 3:So basically, um, again primary school, I think. Uh-huh, what I think was great about primary school, despite all the fracas was there, was this kenyan teacher called Mr Moses, and I remember his wife, madam Elizabeth. I can never forget this too. Wherever they are, guys, you guys made an impact in my life and he was always a person I could run to whenever I was bullied, and somehow he saw something different in me. So I started doing public speaking when I was in grade four. I'd get opportunities to write poems and perform them at the assembly or at the school's activities, which I was bullied for by students, by the way. So the teachers would be like woohoo, great, great girls. And then you get off stage and your fellow students say oh, you think you're old hat, you make me look bad.
Speaker 3:So they are envious or jealous, God at that point I didn't understand it, but I hated myself for it.
Speaker 3:Right, as a kid, you want approval from your friends, you see. But I do remember Mr Moses and Miss Elizabeth, and every single time we had a performance I used to love to dance, still do she'd put me in, and every time I danced she'd really applaud that. And then, of course, for all the students would be like oh, natchezasana, you're doing it too much, you shouldn't do. Gosh, people can be cruel and, by the way, one of the things I want to are cruel is because they get it from their parents. I'm going to leave that there.
Speaker 2:So they don't do things that they don't see every day.
Speaker 3:They learn these things, children learn these things Moving on, that's not the point of the story. In high school, I'd say again, being surrounded every single time, you find there'd always be one person who would see what you could do right and try to push you in that direction. I'd say I had a lot of that in Mr Moses and Miss Madam Elizabeth, I'd say in high school or secondary school, you know, in Tanzania secondary school is from one to form four and then high school is from six, from five and six.
Speaker 2:It used to be like that in East Africa, but yeah, it changed.
Speaker 3:You guys. But yeah, it changed you guys.
Speaker 2:You abandoned the system, yeah, basically so people do four years in university instead of two, like before three. But that's changing back for some reason so we have what they're calling CBC, which is divided into like four segments, so there's lower primary. I mean you start like PP1, pp2 and PP3, I think, and then you go to lower primary.
Speaker 1:I mean you start like PP1, pp2, and PP3, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you go to lower primary up to standard four and then you graduate, then go to upper primary school or something. Then you do three years up to class seven and then you join lower high school for two years and then another three years. Kind of mumble out there.
Speaker 3:I do know in TZ they're working on scraping off the standard seven. I mean standard seven, so it's grade one to six and then you move on to secondary school. That's something that is in the works currently.
Speaker 2:So I feel some type of way of the way we adopt some of these of these, these kind of curriculums, the way they change, because even for us, I think we are borrowing from Finland or something they do CBC wait, curriculum based, cbc, curriculum based it's curriculum-based, cbc, curriculum-based something. And I feel like, yes, maybe the 844 system did not work, which I took, which I'm more familiar with, but it's competitive and then you get to explore the world and then expertise on what you have explored across the world. But when you say you're testing people from their talent or what they're interested in, then you have to limit them from what they can do or even limit their career growth for some reason. So yeah, that's my opinion and I think maybe I stand corrected. But also something else I found with that CBC is that it's too expensive for parents. Right.
Speaker 2:Given the macroeconomics that are going throughout the world so.
Speaker 2:I feel like if you're not really well off, you're still disadvantaged. More disadvantaged because even when you're tested, you're not tested amongst everyone. It's just like segments of that test goes to different divisions, which really doesn't give you the real picture of someone's intellectual. So there's that. But of course, since now we were told we are leaders of tomorrow and we are here now we are leaders. It's something. Actually we should be having one more and try to see the best way. So you go to high school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I go to high school. I think, just building on what you said, if I just reflect back, I think there is a critical need to teach children how to think, Teach children how to think, Teach children how to coexist positively with others and coexist in a way that you can actually create solutions together rather than compete, which is basically what the systems right now are geared to do. I see you as competition and hence I'm going to react as per that perception and so that in itself it breeds a culture. That culture of toxic competitiveness also breeds an atmosphere where children are bullied in school right.
Speaker 3:But then also, you know one of the things that again high school, one of the things that I appreciate about my experience outside of high yeah was the fact that I read books. I think books was always my escape, always my escape for nerds, pardon for all nerds for all.
Speaker 3:Nerds. Books were my escape. I, I remember. I remember just locking myself in spaces and just reading, and just reading, and, and and dreaming of a different and adverse reality consistently. And I, I remember doing skits and doing things in front of my mirror. At home we had this little cracked up mirror. The entire house would share this really cracked up mirror. And I remember, whenever there was nobody at home, I do things in front of the mirror, just imagining that I was in a completely different world than the one that I had to be in.
Speaker 3:Because one of the things that we don't talk about is the fact that even in the systems that we create and I'm not talking about just in school, but even in the homes we force kids to what's the word? To conform to a certain, to the limits of what we, as parents, have been exposed to. Basically, our children are conformed to the limits of our own exposure as parents. And if we do not take it upon ourselves to keep exposing ourselves to new ways of thinking, to new ways of being, to new ways of parenting, to new ways of innovating and allowing our parenting to new ways of, you know, innovating and allowing our minds to be creative. Our children are also confined and so there's no way when a child comes to you and says and people think exposure is traveling, and sorry, traveling and going, you know, to different countries and exploring different nationalities, but that's not it. Exposure is actually actually even just reading a book and sitting down and having a meaningful conversation about something different. It's having a conversation seeing a pothole and saying, hey, let's get together and talk about how do we make sure that potholes on the streets are normal? So let's research, let's do something together. You're exposing my mind to a different way of thinking. You're having the neural pathways in a child's mind gets to explore right further and also being able to say well, I do.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I check on my life when, when you have a parent, you're like so what does your child want to be when they grow up? And like I want to, I want them to be like me. I'm like why? But why do you want them to be like you? But who are you? Why do you want them to be like you? Yeah, but who are you? Why do you want them to be like you? You know, and I feel that we can be and even as teachers we can be very selfish in our ambitions. And anyway, positive side of high school is the books All the way to. I'm just going to jump to university because I literally cannot remember many positive things except for the books, and also they're their friends. You know, at the end of the day it's a circle that you have and I did get to try out different things and I'm really grateful for that, for the people that held me down.
Speaker 3:But then, moving into university, I did not do university in Tanzania, I did university in Taylor's university campus in Malaysia, wakatihu. Back then, when there were very few Africans in Malaysia is when we were there. But before going to uni I did a gap year, right, and I did a gap year because, well, we couldn't afford university, my mom couldn't afford it, so we, I had to find ways to work and so I did work in that year. I got into that's when I began my career in advertising and marketing. I started off as a creative assistant in my mom's company, or a company that my mom was heading, and then I got into copywriting. So I worked with an advertising agency called FCB Foot Coat and Building. It is normal in TZ. I don't know about South Africa where it was founded, but I was doing copywriting for Vodacom Advertising. This was 2007. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I went on to being executive executive what do you call it? Account executive for Vodacom Advertising within that agency, handling Vodacom Adverts and then from there for photo com advertising within that agency handling photo com adverts, and then from there I went to uni.
Speaker 2:So what did this gap year teach you?
Speaker 3:now that you're earning a living and working, I got to explore, okay, I got to explore my writing. Listen, you know, and you know how I got the job. Michael, this is a funny story. Yahoo messenger. Every time I tell people about yahoo messenger, people don't know about it. Yahoo messenger was the bombcom. I know about it, I know, you know, yahoo was the bomb. It was.
Speaker 3:We had chat rooms and everything, and so I was on Yahoo Messenger and I remember going into different chat rooms that were very much aligned with some of the thinking that I had, and I'd go in and people would be. People would just come into these spaces and argue for the sake of arguing and I'm like well, I like that. You said that. However, here's a different way of thinking and I'd share these things on different messenger groups. And I remember this one day, a gentleman on Yahoo Messenger I don't even remember what the conversation was about, michael and then he asked me hey, are you free? And I said for what? By the way, I was snappy. I was like free for what? For who? Who are you talking to me? I was like hey, me, listen, I was not having it. I'm like you shall not talk to me like this online. Do you know me? Do you know me?
Speaker 3:I was like you cannot. You cannot talk to me just like how. But then he's like I'm like, do you? There is a job opportunity. We're recruiting. We're looking for a copywriter at FCB. Are you able to come to? It was PPF Tower right now and I said copywriter In my mind. I have no idea what a copywriter does.
Speaker 2:I'm like I just saw a writer and you're interested now. Just saw a writer and you're interested now because you used to write.
Speaker 3:I used to write a lot, I still do and so I said and, by the way, this day in Ilikwa and Meshoka, my mom had sent us out to do research, because I was working for a company at the time. We had done research, and you know, research on ground. I was wearing sandals, so, trust me, my legs were a different color, the color of the soil, because I was doing surveys from morning to evening. So by the time I go back, I was, you could. And so I said I was coming, rushed to the bathroom, cleaned my feet, got on a bus and then I went to town.
Speaker 2:That's Dala Dala.
Speaker 3:Dala Dala, got on a Dala Dala Matatu and then got to PPF Tower. Remember I stopped at Postam, walked to PPF Tower and then I asked what's a copywriter?
Speaker 2:From the guy.
Speaker 3:Yes no from the guy. No from the guy Because he met me at the ground floor, took me up. It's like we've been interviewing for a copywriter all day. We haven't found somebody.
Speaker 2:And how do you know him? He's just through the, it's like we've been interviewing for a copywriter all day. We haven't found somebody. And how do you?
Speaker 3:know him Yahoo Messenger. You guys were chatting. No, he used to be in the chat room, so he used to see my responses. Literally, that was it. So he used to see my responses and so he's like I think you'd be very good at it. He's like you have witty comments and I'm like I don't even understand what he comments. Maybe I was just saying I was just responding, just being you. Yeah, I was just being me.
Speaker 2:From the books. I don't know To the chats.
Speaker 3:And so I was just responding and then eventually he says, well, I need you to see the MD. I didn't even know what the long form of MD was. I'm like, okay, I need to see an MD. And I'm like, what is an MD? Of course I didn't ask. I'm just like, okay, I need to see somebody called MD.
Speaker 3:And so he took me to I think it was at the 12th floor and his name was I don't remember his name, but he was an MD that was very much feared at the time and he asked me a bunch of questions. He asked me a bunch of questions connected to the work and I responded them in the best way I knew how. So he asked me about to. He showed me some photos and he told me what I would. And I came to realize later that those photos were ads. And he said what would you write to accompany this? And I said so I'm like, oh, this could be this and this could be that. And I was just having a conversation and then he said, come on Monday, you're hired. Oh, now I know he's like do you speak Swahili?
Speaker 3:I'm like, yeah, I speak Swahili. My Swahili was terrible but I said I speak Swahili, but I was honest. I was like I speak streets. I can speak Swahili to get through my life in the streets, but corporate Swahili not necessarily. But streets but corporately not necessarily. But I can learn. Atc is like come on Monday. Actually he said come on Friday. So I came to see the creative director at the time and he asked me a question every young person should not be asked, especially if it's their first Like how much do you want to get paid?
Speaker 2:You have never been paid before.
Speaker 3:Never Trust me. I was working for my mom. Which is she paying you for what? She's giving you food on the table and a roof on top of your head, you're good. Right and I don't remember what I said, but I should have said more. That's all I know.
Speaker 2:But they give you what you said.
Speaker 3:They gave me what I asked for, but of course their budget was a lot higher than what I asked for.
Speaker 2:Oh my, goodness, people are so unkind in this world. Terrible yeah.
Speaker 3:Terrible yeah, but anyway.
Speaker 2:Anyway, did you get the experience? Was it worth it in terms of experience?
Speaker 3:It was great in terms of experience. I got in, I did the job and in a month and a half I think I was. I was what do you call it? When I was Promoted.
Speaker 2:Promoted yes.
Speaker 3:I was promoted to account executive for those adverts and then I had to leave for uni. I remember telling the general manager at that time that I'm leaving and he thought I was leaving to go to another agency. And I kept saying no, I'm going to uni. I'm going to uni Because many of them could not believe that I had not gone through university. And I said, yes, me guy, I only have a from six education. I don't. I don't have a degree.
Speaker 2:They were surprised.
Speaker 3:Yes, several were what Shock, shock on you. Yeah, and and and, and, yeah, and I remember he. They offered me a different position.
Speaker 2:They offered me an account manager position, so that you don't go to uni.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that you don't go to uni. Yeah, so that I don't leave. I don't think they believed I was going to uni. Ah Not at all. He didn't believe whatsoever.
Speaker 2:But did they improve your pay after proving yourself?
Speaker 3:They wanted to After going to uni. No, I didn't come back there.
Speaker 2:But your pay was what you asked throughout the year.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. When I got promoted to account executive, my pay also increased.
Speaker 2:Ah account executive, my pay also increased.
Speaker 3:And, as every stupid child, my spending also increased Terrible. I have no comment. So you go to uni in Malaysia. Listen, I was 18.
Speaker 2:It's been 19. What did you buy at 18?
Speaker 3:I think I was helping a lot with expenses at home. That's nice, and I decided not to take a bus anymore.
Speaker 2:I was taking a lot with the expenses at home. Ah, that's nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I decided not to take a bus anymore.
Speaker 2:I was taking a taxi. That's also nice. Yeah, sometimes we beat ourselves for treating ourselves good and showing some gratitude to people who actually sacrifice everything for us.
Speaker 3:It's a bad thing. I don't mind that first part, but I can't even think I can't remember what I did with them. I'm pretty sure I bought a lot of clothes. I used to be a shopaholic, because me, I'm growing up, I'm growing up in Port of Erechte, I don't have luxury of these clothes. And now I have the money. Of course I was shopping. I, of course I was shopping. I was shopping Anyway.
Speaker 2:What else would you have done now that you know?
Speaker 3:So I'm very big in investing. I'd have probably bought CRDB shares. Ah, I definitely would have done that.
Speaker 2:Okay, not bought a plot or something.
Speaker 3:I would have bought the CRDB shares. I'd start there. Ah and then I'd have thought about buying a plot A hundred percent. So those two things yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Everyone makes mistakes.
Speaker 2:Everyone makes mistakes.
Speaker 3:Anyway.
Speaker 2:So you go to Malaysia, right, right, and this is a new country. I think Malaysia is a first world country, right?
Speaker 3:It's a developing country. It's a developing country, it's a developing country.
Speaker 2:So what is that experience for you?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm just going to say I didn't eat food for a month. I'm not adventurous with, like with you, the puerza soup. I would never. My palate is not refined. It's a lost cause. It's a lost cause. So I remember eating cornflakes for an entire month because I would not dare experiment with new foods. But you know, all in all it was a great experience and the great things about it, I guess, was listen.
Speaker 3:I'm coming from very different from many of the students in my class. I've come from real life experience. I've worked in an agency and my cause was mass communication, specializing in advertising, and then there was an aspect of marketing there. But I've had this real life experience and so, with the concepts that they're teaching in uni in my mind, I already know how to apply them on ground. I can also say that I was, I guess, considering I was coming from this experience agency experience I was coming with it into university. I'd say that I was also very much.
Speaker 3:I think there was a lot of pride involved Because you're coming, it's not even the cup full. My cup was half empty. It was half full, and so everything they were putting in there was a lot of, and I have the words to explain it now. I didn't have it then. There was a lot of context mismatch, because the context they were using to teach and how they were approaching even marketing strategies is very different from how you'd approach it here, right? So some strategies worked for there.
Speaker 3:So, even even as the professors, the lecturers, were marking, I would approach an assignment thinking about my experience in TZ, where I'm like, if we're launching something, this is how we would go about it, right, and this is what would need to happen for a campaign to be effective, whereas on that end, that's not effective, that's a waste of money, and I'm like, well, the costs of running a campaign here and there are also very different. Whereas on that end, that's not effective, that's a waste of money, and I'm like, well, the costs of running a campaign here and there are also very different. But either way. So again, now I have the words for it.
Speaker 3:Back then I didn't, yeah, but there was a lot of learning as well. As always, I found soul lesson books. I didn't go out much. I had a very, very handful group of friends. Yeah, I think that's what I can say about that.
Speaker 2:So in Malaysia, just to get the context. Is it like if you are A university student? Is there like a party life, night life.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, which country Doesn't have party life for university students?
Speaker 2:which one tell me, which one so you have to choose not to participate in that listen.
Speaker 3:Let's be honest, listen for even my kids. If you come to watch this later Thursday evening, I'm thinking of my outfit for Friday. When are you in?
Speaker 2:university.
Speaker 3:I'm in class the moment the last, the last lesson is out. I'm thinking okay, so what are we doing tomorrow? Where are we going? I can already hear the music guy. I can already hear it. I'm already bouncing, I'm already there. Friday was always the night out kind of day. I never drank, by the way, at all. I was not a drinker, and this you know no drinking, no smoking. But I love music. I like music does things to me Right. So it was always the dancing part that I used to gravitate towards and that was about my party life. I'd go out dancing and there would be once a week, sporadically, here and there, but not necessarily every single year, and I'd say university is where I learned to procrastinate.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, that's another discussion, because I think we have ever had this like twice since I knew Right Once. It was lengthy discussion and I think most people struggling this, but also smart people, the greatest of proximate procrastinators procrastinators terrible yeah so Did you really get Maximum out of Malaysia University?
Speaker 3:Man, I'd say I could have gotten more out of it. You know why? Even procrastination, where it started, was the moment we had an assignment. I'd do it immediately, like we had a deadline three weeks, three weeks away, I'd be done. I'd do it immediately. Like we had a deadline three weeks away, I'd be done. I'd be done now, right. And then I came to figure out that I could do an assignment in a day, or in like an assignment that other people would spend two weeks on. I could do it in like eight hours. And so I'm like, okay, let's just wait for the last minute. And hence the procrastination came. And so I'm like, okay, let's just wait for the last minute. And hence the procrastination came. And then I'm also going to blame my procrastination on viruses, because I remember there's a time I did all my assignments on my laptop and then it crashed and I had to do them all over again.
Speaker 2:Oh, you mean the computer viruses?
Speaker 3:The computer viruses, yes, and my laptop crashed and I had to do them all over again. I did assignments that I did in two weeks in one day, and so in my mind I'm like, okay, I can actually do this in a day so I'm like so why did I spend two weeks? So of course, my mind silly me. I went to oh, I can do this in a day. So every time I had assignment, I'm like well, I'll just wait you wait for what? For that one day. It's a a terrible terrible, terrible.
Speaker 3:But, all in all, you asked about the university experience. I think it was beautiful exposure. It was beautiful exposure to see how much some universities put into the courses that they expose students to. So when you're learning so, for example, marketing like I'd say, one course in marketing you'd find that the professor is actually an expert. They've worked at an agency or they own an agency, so they're giving you real life examples. Of course, like I said, context was quite varied, but I appreciate that. Or you'd find that you know a lecturer teaching you. You know advanced science of human behavior, so we had such courses. If you're learning communications, you have to learn human behavior, and they're actually an expert in the field. You know they publish works in the field and it's not theory. Yeah, that's a that's that's a practical experience practical experience.
Speaker 3:I came to really appreciate that, the fact that people who are in front of students teaching must have practical experience. That way, when the kalila in in high school gets to ask you a question and you're not sure what it is, you can still respond and you're not intimidated by questions that are coming from left, right and center, because you just have this real life experience to back up your theory.
Speaker 2:That's a nice way of looking at it and also, given your previous experience, at least for sure you got a different perspective in education right, and did you get any receipt, or did you graduate just on time?
Speaker 3:So I graduated with a child. I'm going to say that.
Speaker 2:From Malaysia.
Speaker 3:Not from Malaysia, tanzanian, but I had my child when I was in my last year of uni, but I graduated on time.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, that's not, but I graduated on time. Okay, okay, that's not bad, graduated on time.
Speaker 3:I remember the professors were like, oh, you have to stop. Now You're expecting, you can't go to class. I'm like, hey, watch me, me, I have been brought up to study, I shall study. So, michael, literally I used to, I used to, I used to push my, my child, my son he's now 14 I used to push his pram Into the class and I used to carry him In the classes. So, nkwena, I'd bebeleze him, so I'd sit and literally cradle him In the back of the class and I'd be taking notes and I'd change his diaper In the toilets, literally go to the toilet, put him on my lap and change it, and every time we had exams I'd literally nurse him. Yeah, I said one, two, three, one happened. That does not equal to two. The way I respond to this. It was terribly difficult, but I made sure I finished and I finished well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that part I didn't know about it. Now that I know about it, I think I see also something else about you that I didn't know where that drive comes from, now I see. So you graduate now. Do you come back straight here or do you find opportunities as well?
Speaker 3:so the story is a little bit. The story is Michael you're getting. Story is Michael, you're getting into every you know, with this podcast, people just ask really high-level questions and I give them high-level answers. I feel like you're digging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing is, you see, high-level questions have a problem. Those are the people. So the thing here and I want you to understand me here you're free. If you're not comfortable answering the question, we can just skip it.
Speaker 2:No, I don't mind answering it, but the thing is the thing is, I've seen so many, I've watched so many people, so many people high level, you know, medium level, whatever level, but I tend not to put one and one together. But for your story or for any impact masters or Africa's Talking Retail stories, you get to understand the whole context To some extent. You might listen to that story and understand why actually those people think that way, made that decision, and you'll get to the impacts that you've created and you'll see and anyone who is listening will see how actually most of these drove you to building these Nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So don't worry about.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not. I'm just like you're the first person to ask me these questions, and so I'm like, oh okay, here we go yeah.
Speaker 2:But for sure, even for me, I'm learning a lot from you. Though we have ever had several conversations that are really deeper than these, I'm still also now getting some other context of like oh, this is it. This actually contributes to what KELS is right now. Yeah, so did you just come back here to die or did you go elsewhere?
Speaker 3:You did not forget your question, did you? Do I?
Speaker 2:need to.
Speaker 3:So I was to graduate in 2010, in May of 2010. But that year I had to come back home. So my final course was in. I finished in March of 2010. But something happened in our home Again, single parent home, my mom. Something happened, so she disappeared and I had to come back home and take care of the family. So I had to go from uni to breadwinner and so I had to cut short. So I started with a diploma in advanced mass communication and then I got a scholarship to finalize a degree. I couldn't finish the degree because I had to come back home to take care of the family, and so I came back home in September of 2010.
Speaker 3:And the reason I never, I could never. I did not attend my graduation. I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford it. I had a debt, I'm sure, because I was paying some of my tuition fees, paying as I ran along, and so my mom disappeared. I had to come back home. Coming back home, I thought I'd be here for three months and then I would get to go back to uni and go on with my dreams. No, listen, you try to tell your dreams, your dreams. Put them in a box, cover them Nice board, find shelves, the back of the shelf, put it there, cover, do not look. That was the situation. So I had to completely forget what I wanted to do and come here and take on the responsibility of taking care of the family.
Speaker 3:So I had a brother, a young sister, who was also going through high school at that time. She went to ISD and, for those who will listen to high studies and a very expensive it's most expensive school in t-set but we had a, we had an arrangement that had that, so most of the fees are taken care of by her father. At the time we share it. We shared a mom and he and and and they. The school itself had a. They had an arrangement that would take care of some of these fees and so we're taking care of kind of like the transportation fees, books and basically upkeep, which will in itself was not small. Exam fees were not small. For those who have ever applied to college in the United States, you know every single university. The application fee is not small. It's not small. So it was things like that. I had to come back to find a house to move my family to, because the place that my mom used to rent we had to move. There was just drama. You know you come back, guy. There was drama.
Speaker 2:At home.
Speaker 3:Guys, there was drama.
Speaker 2:So your mom did not just disappear, because I feel like there's a movie here.
Speaker 3:I'm getting like a moment a tube, like we should do it.
Speaker 2:I used to be a playwright, so we can combine your writing skill with my playwright skill.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. Yeah, so I came back. My mom did. There were suspicious circumstances, but not saying more into that, but it was. I was what? 22, one-ish, two-ish, but coming into a space where suddenly you have to take on all the responsibilities of a home, it's a lot.
Speaker 3:And nobody's asking you about what you need, where you are, what your dreams are, what you want to do. Basically, you are nothing. Everybody else matters. Nobody's asking you about how you are and I remember moving into a space of deep, deep depression. But you can't show anybody depression, you're just supposed to move. I was suicidal. I was suicidal Completely, but the thing that took me through was faith, faith in God. I cannot. It was God and nothing else. You know I have stories for days. This podcast is not long enough for us to go through everything, but I'm grateful for that season. We went from house to house. We knew homelessness, guys, homelessness.
Speaker 2:How many are you in your family?
Speaker 3:So I've got a young sister, I've got an older brother. Homelessness how many are you in your family? So I've got a young sister, I've got an older brother, um, and then, but then in the house there was also a lady who who, um, my mom was taking care of with her two children. They were also there, um, and so when we moved, I, I moved in, I moved with all of them and remember there was my son as well, um, he was one in something at this month, at this time, and so we moved to a different house. In that I just going to go through a string of events in that time.
Speaker 3:So there was having to move from one house to the other, there was being chased away from that one other house that we moved into because the landlord did not love the fact that I couldn't afford expensive furniture and I bought mattresses and put them on the floor because the family needs somewhere to sleep. So I could not afford, like the beautiful, there's luxury, and then there's what there was, that level like medium, and then there's the level at the bottom there, but I'm like people can sleep, that's what I could do at the time, right, and then we got chased out of that house because he didn't like the way we were living. And then and then I found another house that was a little bit, that was affordable, but it was great for the family. But we paid the rent. I paid the rent for this house, only to find out that the landlady was a fraud.
Speaker 3:So the night when I have to move, the evening that I have to move my family from one house to the other, you come to find out that there's no the other, there's no house. And then, in this house that we're supposed to move from, the landlady, who was a church deacon, found people to come into the house and throw our things out, threw things out, and she was saying oh, I'm going to publish you in the papers, I'm going to literally leave my house. You poor, poor girl. I don't want poor people living in my house Seriously.
Speaker 3:Seriously and so, thank God, there's a friend of mine who had another friend who lived in Sinza, so they had, like a house, like you know, 50k houses, which is about what like $20 a month and so, and then that other friend, our mutual friend, had traveled, so his house was vacant for about three months.
Speaker 3:So I got to move the dada and her two sons and my son there and myself I had to ask my brother to find ways to take care of himself my young sister. I moved her to my aunt's house. I had to ask my aunt, my mom's young sister, to take care of her. And then, um, another friend of ours, his mom's house had an empty room so we moved all the furniture there and so we went to this place in Sinza and just we had like clothes in our suitcase and we had to start there and it was, I don't know how. I was not depressed, it was chaos, and then, moving from that, eventually managed to get some money together, moved from that house in Sinza to a house in miko cheney, yeah, moved the family there again, we were sleeping on the floor still, but this guy didn't care, which guy think the new landlord. So this is another house moved there, um, and then in this new house that we were in kutcheri, my son got hit by our neighbor so he had an accident. He had a near-death experience. So our neighbor was driving into the driveway and she was on her phone. So she hits my son. So she hits him on the right side and then he falls on his left he's just learning to walk. So he's about a year and a few months he falls on his left. He's just learning to walk. So he's about a year and a few months he falls on his left side. And then she doesn't realize that she's hit him, so she grazes him what, she moves him along on the. It's like cobalt bricks to fit on the driveway.
Speaker 3:And so what ended up happening? I remember I was at home that afternoon. Then I had gone to choir practice or brand practice, because I used to serve in the choir in my former church and I got called up. So the dad was calling me where are you? Come back home. And I said, listen, you never call me this way. What happened? And she said just come back home. I'm like what happened? Just come back home. I'm like, okay, did somebody cause we were on the first floor? Did somebody fall from the first floor? No, is the house on fire? No, is somebody dead? No, I'm like okay, what happened? Somebody knocked Pharrell.
Speaker 2:That's my son's name.
Speaker 3:Firstborn's name. Where are you? We're going to, we're TMJ. Tmj is a hospital, it's a hospital not very far from here, rushed to the hospital. Now my son, literally the entire left side of his face was gone, paralyzed Skin, so it was grazed on the cobble brick driveway. There was no hair, literally his skin was scraped off.
Speaker 2:That was bad.
Speaker 3:You guy. I was, and of course everybody is like hold yourself, be strong, listen, I was just from chiropractic, but the words that came out of my mouth were not holy. I'm like shut up, do not tell me to come down, look at what you've done. And so, even as I'm walking into the hospital, by the way, there's literally blood dripping and my son, the moment he sees me, he reaches out his hand and he's crying. And they've got this massive gauze on his left side of his face. They've injected him with different chemicals, of course meds. And I ask, and they're like oh, I've done an x-ray, he's fine, michael, long story short, we came to find out that he had a fractured liver, he had bruised ribs and he had a fractured left shoulder. We found out two days later because the hospital nothing on the hospital, but the hospitals and it was not just one we had visited at the time.
Speaker 3:My neighbor at the time did not want the one who hit him, by the way, did not want to invest. She said she was not going to pay for expensive hospitals. The only hospital with a CT scan, working CT scan at that moment was at Gakhan Hospital. And I said eventually, after taking my son back and forth to the hospital so many times, only to be told by nurses that I was too anxious as a mom, that I was looking too much into it. And I can say this in Swahili it's like so, moms of Nade, you're too anxious, you don't know how to take care of children, you don't know how to nurture your children. You're panicking for nothing. Your child is fine. The child has a temperature of 40 degrees. He's throwing up blood, michael, he's throwing up blood. He can't eat. His stomach is blotting. There's something wrong. And I kept going back to the hospitals there's something wrong, only to be laughed at and to be chased that is agakan this is not agakan.
Speaker 3:This was uh, another two hospitals.
Speaker 3:I won't even go into it. But eventually I um one of the evenings, so a night after he had the accident, um, he was doing terribly and my son is whimpering on the bed and he's just saying mommy, mommy. And I'm like this is enough. And I and I went I I think this was the third, the fifth hospital visit I'd done at that. In the fourth I'd been laughed at by nurses.
Speaker 3:I'd watched nurses scrape my son's skin off his face, saying that, oh, because you know, when they put medicine the pass builds up. And what they said? They were removing the pass. They were saying if they don't remove it, it's going to cause the wound to get infected. They had not given him an anesthetic at all. There was no painkiller. They would scrape it off. And what one of the nurses told me is if he's not crying, if we don't hear him cry, we won't know if it's working. They were holding him down doing this. No adult would agree to this nonsense. No adult would agree to this nonsense. And every time I kept holding them I'm like don't do it, give him something. And again they would laugh and they would talk amongst themselves. Mothers of nowadays, oh, you have no backbone. And they were telling stories about their good old times, right, anyway?
Speaker 3:So eventually I go downstairs and I knock on this lady's. This is at night, it's around midnight and I knock. I'm like there's something wrong with this boy. I'm going back to the hospital. So I go back to the same hospital that I was in, where I was laughed at in that in the afternoon, luckily, I find another doctor. Now this doctor, he tells me, he tells me mama, I have no idea what's wrong with your child. Nobody knows what's wrong with your child. You'll have to face it yourself. As much as people sometimes want to say, it's a cruel response. I was grateful Because for the first time, somebody was honest. Somebody was honest. And I asked him point blank I'm like, give me a referral, I need a CT scan. Where do we go? He told me point blank the only hospital that has a working ct scan right now is aga khan, I said give me a referral.
Speaker 3:He's like I'm gonna write your referral, I'm gonna call somebody and make sure you go there. I was grateful. Yeah, he literally told me I have no idea what I'm going to give you medicine, just go. And I remember actually ct scan at that time was what 700k, so that's about um 300 dollars. Yeah, 350 or something.
Speaker 3:yes, and he had to do quite a few right and and, and I, I remember calling this lady and saying, hey, I have to go to aga khan. And she said, no, if you're taking him to aga khan, I cannot foot any of the bills, as if she was footing the bills at this point anyway, and I said my son is ill, he's about to pass.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 3:Do you? I hang up. I'm like I will do everything in my power to make sure he's okay. I'll sell whatever I need to, as if I had anything to sell. But I'll sell whatever I need to sell to make sure my son is fine. Got into Aga Khan emergency Again. That, between 2 am when we were there, and 9 am, is when they found out all these things that he had a fracture, bruised ribs, the fractured shoulder, and his liver had fractured as well. Did he fractured, punctured? Yeah, he was a punctured liver and so he had a lot of internal bleeding. And do you know the hospitals before that's what they had done whenever he was vomiting blood. They gave him medicine to stop him from vomiting. They did not try to find out why. What?
Speaker 2:a minute.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:His son is alive right.
Speaker 3:He's alive. He was in ICU for two and a half weeks.
Speaker 2:And all this time he was given this medication to stop him vomiting.
Speaker 3:So he was in ICU when we got to Aga Khan is when they put him into ICU, so this entire time he was actually terrible.
Speaker 2:How long was that?
Speaker 3:In Aga Khan.
Speaker 2:No, in the other hospital.
Speaker 3:So he was not actually admitted in the other hospital. They treated him as an outpatient he was in and out to take him.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so I kept going back to the hospital and telling them that there's something wrong, there's something wrong, whereas the doctors and nurses alike kept telling me that the child is fine and I was making something out of nothing and I was being too dramatic and, of of course, they're being laughed at.
Speaker 3:I was in that one day I was in the hospital several times saying there's something wrong, until that evening when I went back to the hospital and said this is ridiculous, there's something wrong here. And I kept, and my whole intention of going back to that hospital that evening was saying give me his papers. I need to go to a different hospital because you guys are not telling me anything meaningful, right? And so, of course, in getting the papers is where the doctor told me that, okay, we don't know, none of this makes sense. He was going through the file like this doesn't make sense to take into a different hall. He needs a ct scan. And the only place you can get a ct scan is this hospital, which is where I ended up going to, at the can, where even the, the, the, the doctors in the emergency unit were shocked at how is this?
Speaker 2:How did he survive?
Speaker 3:Yes, how is this boy?
Speaker 2:not in ICU. I was shocked like how did he survive?
Speaker 3:God.
Speaker 2:Because internal bleeding takes not more than 48 hours for you to be out.
Speaker 3:Michael, I don't even know what to tell you.
Speaker 2:But eventually it got well.
Speaker 3:Eventually it got well Again. Icu two and a half weeks. I am very grateful to my church at the time. They came up and they took care of their bills. That hospital was full of visitors. Full of visitors. There's a point where they said he needed blood. Do you know, I have O positive. I didn't give a drop. By the time I found out Aga Khan's blood bank was full. Friends and family they filled, Literally even before they were told my son's blood group. They literally said we're just going to give blood. Whatever blood group is needed, you will find it there, you know, and I'm so grateful to that and kills.
Speaker 2:This begs me to ask the question when did you start getting seriously involved with church, you know, in spiritual world, because I know you are quite spiritual and I love it.
Speaker 3:I'd say okay, so I'm going to say that. So my so, st Mary's, the school I went to. So we used to have fellowship but I wasn't necessarily very involved in fellowship. My roommates shout out to Alice Lushiku, ana Mwasha, ana Lushika. We used to have fellowship but I wasn't necessarily very involved in fellowship. My roommates shout out to Alice Lushiku, ana Mwasha, ana Lushiku. I literally have to give him a shout out. They used to Lillian Madeja, woohoo, they used to go to fellowship and I used to.
Speaker 3:I used to kind of just tag along. I thought I was paying attention, tag along because I was not raised a Christian, yeah, and I'd tag along, but then I'd say those curiosity was planted and then after I was done with school I started going to I call it these conferences, right? Makasege. Shout out to Makasege, started going out to Makasege and I used to remember I used to go with a friend of mine called Pamela I'm shout out to Pam like shouting out to everybody and I have my aunt, aunt Wainey or Manny, who was my mom's older sister, who used to push me to attend and I used to eventually, and for me it was the curiosity that was planted and I appreciated the fact that in some of these spaces I could ask questions and not be ridiculed for the questions I was asking and I had a lot of questions a lot guy.
Speaker 2:And and have you do getting answers to the questions.
Speaker 3:Was, was, very was was a breath of fresh air. And when I was in Malaysia again, um, I went to a church. You have a church in Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur city have a school and I, um, at that church there was a dance ministry guy and remember, remember, the only reason I used to go clapping was because I love to dance Not that I love the atmosphere, terrible. But then here we are in a church and there are people breaking it down. You know they were professional. It's not this, oh, we're just choir kumbaya. No, it was professional, boogieing before God. The choreography was top notch. You're gonna see it in Chris Brown video.
Speaker 3:People were serious with this ministry and that got me planted yeah, right, got me planted and as well as a choir where you could literally pray, like ministry was no joke. You don't just come here and just do your your small sidestep. No, if you can boogie in these platforms, you are gonna boogie before god and so and so we used to run whole productions. They were top notch. So, coming from Malaysia into TZ, I was also planted in a. I plugged into a church here, yeah, so basically, my journey was not. I cannot tell you that it was? Oh, it was a once off event and I was completely transformed. No, it was a once-off event and I was completely transformed.
Speaker 2:And here, with your son, you truly saw the essence of community, the essence of being in charge and the essence of God being on your side.
Speaker 3:Man, it was, you know, for one of the hospitals that we went to before Aga Khan. I remember they did a CT scan, but at that point they didn't have anybody who could read the scans, so they had to send them, to email them, to India to get them read in India, and then the doctors in India would respond. It's ridiculous, but anyway. But I remember the one who was doing it. He said Mama, we don't know how to help you In this case. You just need to pray, because it's dire. Yeah, but again I saw God show out and show off in that boy. Because I'd gotten to a point, Michael, where I literally couldn't pray. All I could do was kneel and cry. That's all I'm like. Kneel and cry. That was it so good listening?
Speaker 2:to your heart is true. He lost. Cry, that's all I'm like. Kneel and cry, that was it.
Speaker 3:Because he lost a lot of blood. The fact that when you see my son now, he only has a tiny scar above his left eye.
Speaker 2:He recovered altogether.
Speaker 3:It is ridiculous.
Speaker 2:You cannot even believe it. You can't see, because you saw the other side.
Speaker 3:Because I saw the other side. When you see him, you can't see. Because you saw the other side, because I saw the other side, I can't. When you see him, you can't even tell that he lost hair on the left side of his face. You can't tell that his ear had no skin. You can't tell yeah, it's something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing. At least something good out of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Something good out of it. Something good out of it. So, kelsey, fast forward. Where do you go to from sleeping on the ground?
Speaker 3:Where do I go from sleeping? The way you connected those two things. Okay. So really really quickly. Can I just move really quickly here yeah?
Speaker 2:because I see a lot of things good things that happen and you really quickly. Can I just move really quickly here? Yeah, because I see a lot of things good things that happen and you move quickly.
Speaker 3:All right, okay, all right. So from here at this point, I worked with. When I came back from Malaysia, by the way, I worked with an advertising agency called it was called the Agency at that time and we did a lot of social marketing. Then I moved on to working with another agency called Footprint, and then I quit working with both agencies. At the time, I had no plan. I had a grand idea that I was going to serve in ministry and, you know, do great work for the Lord, and I was. I had no plan. It was a terrible idea. It was a terrible idea.
Speaker 3:I had no plan. Long story short, it did not end well. Ended up working with lost our house. Ended up working fast forward. Worked with Airtel. So, I joined Airtel as what was I doing?
Speaker 2:Brand and creative.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was in the marketing department. I don't remember exactly what my title was, but I was in charge of. Eventually the title got moved to brand assets and something Team lead. Executive. Yeah, I was a team lead in something, so I was working with the agency to make sure the creatives were done in time, briefing them, making sure that basically everything everybody saw was done well, working to come up with the agencies to develop strategies etc. But at the end of the day, um, I left airtel. Um, again.
Speaker 2:I always had, again I always had this strong desire to create something impactful and I think that's where we met actually, because now in between, that process is when we met.
Speaker 3:Yeah actually, but then this was from the very beginning, and this is also a major reason why I left the agency, all these places that I used to work. I used to have a very fiery desire to do something impactful and I'd be in these places and try to find a way to do that. Well, there's that. That's one of the reasons I left, other than the fact that in one of those spaces I did I did there was a little bit of abuse. There's no such thing as a little bit of abuse.
Speaker 3:There was abuse and this I'm going to mention this actually at the service of any woman listening to this podcast with the fact that if you are in a space and you find there's no such thing as a little abuse, if you find any type of situation that makes you uncomfortable, if you find any red light, make sure you speak out on it. If the people in that organization or company will not speak to you or will not speak for you, find others who will. There is no way that you should quiet yourself simply because you are in an environment that you fear one. You fear losing your work, you fear losing friendships and, you see, I remember getting to a point where I was scared of going to work in the evening because somebody would be there and that somebody was a a director, and so there are things that you can't say to quote-unquote director.
Speaker 3:Even though I used to like don't, don't, I don't do that. Don't hug me too close. Don't hug me too close because I'm like grandma hug on on, don't, don't. And where you hug a person and they pull you in, and I want to say these things very frankly because don't, when you hug a person and they pull you in. And I want to say these things very frankly because we don't address them. And I want to say them as as well, because every single time that I try to address it with women even very successful women people keep it quiet and they would rather not share the stories. It is pertinent that we do share the stories.
Speaker 3:Don't hug me too close, don't pull me closer. When you're speaking to me and giving me a brief, you do not have to be this close to my face where I can feel your breath. There's no reason for that whatsoever. And the moment a workspace. So in my experience, where I'd go to a fellow director and explain that, hey, this person is talking to me inappropriately, they're touching me inappropriately. I don't like how they're looking at me. I feel completely unsafe in this space. Now, when you have the fellow director also being male and unable to connect with your context, trust me, unless it's a he-for-she kind of an environment where people make intentional moves to put in policies to protect female employees, your case will not be listened to. So we need to have even though the space does not have these every people working in workspaces. There's no workspace that should not have policies that protect women and men alike.
Speaker 2:And I'm just going to leave it there, but I have to ask a controversial question. Go for it.
Speaker 3:So can also other women make the space unsafe for other women, a hundred percent For men, for other men, other women and men. I'll deal with that.
Speaker 2:Because the HR, as you know, it doesn't really have that and with the world we are living, in that is as real as we are talking here, and with the world we are living in. That is as real as we are talking here.
Speaker 3:So with the policies, for example, that I'm talking about. So the policy many companies have policies that are, that are confined to that work environment. But a policy on paper, a policy not actioned, leads to nothing. But the policy also has to tell you that if there is a case, a safeguarding case, and it's not taken care of, what are the other organs outside this company that I can connect to? Because every company, every organization, must be liable to another entity that's not itself, especially on the matters of safeguarding. So if it's in Tanzania, for example, we have Ate, which is association of of Tanzanian employees and employers. So you have to be connected. So if you're, if you're, if you're going to a space and you're looking for work and you know that company is not a member of ate, maybe it's a startup and of course, for startups is a completely different story, but we can still champion these things, right. So so then? So then, bring it up, champion it. Hey, let's do one, two, three to not just protect the women, but to protect the men, not just from men, but also from women, women. It's just that in my case, I found a lot of abuse with men, but also with women. I'm going to give an example, just one, and we can move.
Speaker 3:But there was a campaign that we were doing for an international NGO that also has offices in Tanzania and I was at the table finalizing a pitch with members of that organization and I remember very clearly, again, these things. You don't forget A person from this organization. They asked me okay, yes, you're going to get the deal, but what is in it for me? And listen, I was so naive, michael. I was so naive. I was like that's a great question. Thank you so much for that question. You get an incredible campaign. We're going to be able to impact people in one, two, three ways.
Speaker 3:I was so excited and the woman sitting next to him said don't be naive, what time can you show up to his hotel room? It was very point blank. I was caught off guard. I remember looking left and right at the people I was on the table, at that table with thinking help. They both one faced that side, the other side of the, the other faced that side. So it's basically you're in it and so, and so I was so stunned that the gentleman himself had to pretend he was joking. But there was no joke there.
Speaker 2:It was serious.
Speaker 3:There was no joke there. Later on, one of of my One of my partners that we were doing, we had, we had created a concert Him with, he tells me Kels, we're going to lose that Because of you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, but I'm not surprised. I've heard these stories For days and I think it's not fair.
Speaker 3:It was an organization championing gender issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, maybe you have an idea, but Don't have an idea.
Speaker 3:Please don't scrap that have no idea.
Speaker 2:So Kels, you quit your job at a very, I would say, prime career to just start impact innovation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I didn't feel like I could do that there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And this actually is a culmination of this kind of vastness and how the corporate works and feeling like you know yes, I'm team lead and all this, but ideally this is not where I want to be.
Speaker 3:There's something more. There's something more. You know one of the things the way corporate organs work, the bottom line is the profit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, and I always am like okay, so how can we make this better for the people? I'm like, yes, I love like listen, I'm all for profit, so how can we make it better for the people? I'm like, yes, I love like listen, I'm all for profit, but how can we make it better for the people? I'm like, listen, this deal could be, but then, of course, you're in the creative department. That is not your job, right? Your job is to take the innovations and find a way to sell them, right. So sometimes I'd be with different team leads and I'd ask questions and it was so like that's not your pay grade. It's above your pay grade.
Speaker 3:It is not your area, you know, but I felt that we could be doing so much more, and even in the different spaces that I worked with before, it was always that we could do so much more, and the things that I'm doing right now. By the way, one of the things that I have to say is I didn't go out and say, oh, I want to do this thing myself. I always was so. For example, I work within the creative economy, the creative industry, even the tech for gender work that we do right now. Listen, everything that I do is connected to an experience that I had, an experience that I figured is not an experience that only I had.
Speaker 3:It's experiences that different people in the different spaces that I have had the privilege of existing different challenges people have had. And so, as we're trying to solve them, how can we solve them at scale? But at the same time, it was looking at okay, do this other people doing something along these lines? Can we do it together? And I found out very early on that not everybody wants, wants to collaborate. Collaboration is something that we all talk about, but not everybody has has the mental fortitude, yeah, to connect in that way yeah, so you start unleashed.
Speaker 2:That's the point where you start unleashed yeah, so I.
Speaker 3:So I started Unleashed Africa Social Ventures in 2000. Actually, I tried to start it in 2015, but finally registered it in 2016. So again, that's kind of where we met. Yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Now I have the right questions. How did you come to Nairobi?
Speaker 3:It's been a long-winded intro.
Speaker 2:Now we know you, Kels, and it's a good thing. How would we know all these things without that intro? So, Kels, you come to Nairobi through Unleashed, of course, but for a program that was run by Impact Up right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, partly Impact Up, partly Impact Up Network Africa yes.
Speaker 2:And yeah, we met among other entrepreneurs across Africa. Yeah. How did you find that program? I don't know if it still runs, but how did you find it?
Speaker 3:It doesn't still run, but okay. So again, from the very beginning, when I had ideas, I used to try to have conversations with people. Same thing where you're trying to have a conversation with people, especially guys. If you have an idea, don't tell family. I'm just going to say People still operate on that.
Speaker 3:They are the first people to destroy, especially if they think they know you. If they think they know you and they cannot think outside the box, the walls they have built for you to exist in, it will be very tough for them to give you any constructive feedback Because, listen, I'm starting to perspire. I'm getting traumatic flashbacks.
Speaker 2:Cool down, cool down, cool down. Maybe that gave you a different perspective about innovation.
Speaker 3:See. So again, from the very beginning I was very much drawn to wanting to converse. So, for example, the creative industry, how can we do so? There are these questions. Let's do this thing. We can do. One, two, three. We can do and I'm going to go into the one, two, three later, but we can do. And then it's kind of like Michael, when you come and tell me Kels, kels, I think we can create ABC to solve one, two, three in this way, and this is kind of how we can create a model around it. And then I'm like, ok, yeah, michael, that's nice, that's nice.
Speaker 3:Do you want to watch this show when I'm completely going to gloss over everything you've just said? And I had so many of those instances where or when you'd say all this and then I'd say, yeah, michael, yeah, but then you're just, you're just a one, you know, you're just an A. You leave this to the other people. Why? Why do you want to? Or I heard this so many times You're just a mother. I heard it so many times. You're just a mother. Focus on being a mother. And then I remember there's a well-meaning uncle. Just give me an example of a well-meaning uncle. You know, in Africa everybody's an uncle, eh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone is an uncle, everyone is an auntie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is not that, anybody connected to my family, but yes, but he kept giving me examples of how of different women who went after their dreams and their families died and flopped, and how their children became addicts and DTC. Those are the examples I used to get. So you're a mother, you should focus on being a mom. I remember I also had a pastor at a time and he used to drive that in that you're not going to be a good parent. You can't be a good parent and do all this.
Speaker 3:And I believed them. To a certain degree I believed them. However, there was still that burning within me to do something. You know, when God puts something inside you, it shall burn you alive, because every single time I'd have an idea and something else would build on top of it, build on top of it, and then somebody will come with a challenge that I would actually respond to with that idea, even though I've not started it, and you'd get testimonials even before you've started anything. And so eventually I said you know what? I'm just going to go for it. And the first program actually that I got connected to was YALI, but I did the East African Regional Leadership Program in Nairobi at.
Speaker 3:Kenyatta University. That was life changing for me. Why? Being in a space where you have young dreamers for Africa all sharing what other people would think are crazy ideas, and everybody believes it's possible?
Speaker 2:And building it. That.
Speaker 3:For me, it was just the fact that people believed it's possible that every single time I said and shared somebody something, nobody laughed at me, nobody told me it was impossible. Nobody told me you're not now a mother. I did not have objections, but people were saying, oh, and then you should also meet this person, you should all. Oh, you could. Oh, look at this example that completely opened a different door for me, because it told me you're sane, sane this entire time into Canine. I was doubting myself. I was thinking I am nuts, I am crazy, I am a menace to society, because these are things I was made to believe. But I got into a space where now I'm like okay, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 3:I'm not a menace to society. There are other people, there's some even crazier than me, so thank God Right. People. There's some even crazier than me, so thank god right. I learned the term social entrepreneurship there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, into the program that we did, um, um, the one that I met you in with, you know, partly, partly organized by impact africa um, and perhaps um that was now even after this yali program came back to tz and tried to figure out okay, so, so because one of the things about these programs and, by the way, we need to do these programs better there's a lot of hype. There's a lot of hype, right, but most of the times that hype dies down when the rubber hits the road. You come back home and then you realize that, oh, this looked really good on paper. It doesn't work well in real life, you know, it doesn't work well at all. So I'm like these programs, even in terms of some of the work that we're doing with Unleashed and some of the such programs that we run, I'm like you learn as you are implementing. So implement, learn on ground right, and that's the only way it's practical.
Speaker 2:So, at the program and make all the mistakes.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent, and so the program that I met you in it was really I was trying to understand business models. I was trying to.
Speaker 3:I had too many ideas. I was trying to organize them, get them to work. You know, and in all honesty, that program helped to a certain extent because it helped me understand the different models and it helped me understand how to organize the thoughts that I had. But then again, I still could not make the jigsaws fit together. I had to go on ground and start practicing, and so we launched Unleashed Africa that year 2016. We launched in August and we launched with Unleashed Academy that year 2016. We launched in August and we launched with Unleashed Academy for Creative Arts and Leadership. We launched, and so just can I say a little bit about Unleashed Africa? So, unleashed Africa right now, after organizing.
Speaker 3:Unleashed Africa. It's always been Unleashed, so Unleashed.
Speaker 2:Africa.
Speaker 3:Yes, so Unleashed Africa Social Ventures. It's a group of startups, but then on one end we have Unleashed Africa Social Ventures. It's a group of startups, but then on one end we have Unleashed Academy for Creative Arts and Leadership. So it's a group of social enterprises and within it are startups. So Unleashed Africa Social Ventures working at the intersection of youth development, social innovation, job creation, and we do that within the creative economy. So creative industry, tech for gender.
Speaker 3:And then there's the social enterprise, ecosystem development or social enterprise development, and so with Unleashed Academy for Creative Arts and Leadership, that's within the creative space. That's what we started off with, but then we also started with research work for the gender work that we do. I had a lot of questions why are the rising numbers of teenage pregnancies? Why do we still have? Why are they peaking every year? Why do we have issues to access around access to opportunities for women? So I had a lot of whys and so I went in just asking questions and that's literally. I told you that we're launching our product Rise Up on the 13th of December.
Speaker 2:The product is known as Rise Up, rise Up on the 13th of December. The product is known as Rise Up, rise.
Speaker 3:Up. Yeah, okay, it started with questions and for me, I was like I'm going to ask these questions for as long as it needs and I'm not just going to do an initiative or an intervention. I want to see. I'm like, once I have an answer to the first question, I'll ask a follow-up and ask a follow-up, and ask a follow-up, up until we try to figure out how can we truly solve this problem at scale. And the biggest thing for me was how can we use and of course this came later how can we use tech to do it? Yeah, because looking at the fact that tech was really picking up, he's really picking up. But how can we do that? And so we, we tested some of the first hypotheses, some of the first questions we had on on whatsapp. You know, people like, oh no, create a website, great, I'm like no, I'm not creating anything. Low, low fire, low fidelity technology, whatsapp we literally use WhatsApp and a lot of people would be like, oh, it's very primitive. I'm like we're going to start with primitive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, to get the real time feedback Right but primitive allowed us to build a theory of change that has gotten rise up to where it's going to be. It's Africa's first digital safe space for girls, and I'm excited to talk about it perhaps later, but yeah, so Unleashed Africa we launched in 2016. Since then, I've had experiences organizing it, trying to figure out what do you launch first, what do we prioritize? And from the very beginning, michael I just have to mention this, I know you're going to ask another question but from the very beginning, it was very important for me to figure out how the different ideas that we had could generate revenue that could grow them. So it was.
Speaker 3:I had those questions around Wisdom Wisdom, so the ideas themselves, so the initiatives, so get grant funding. I'm like, oh, get Wisdom, so the ideas themselves, so the initiatives, so get grant funding. I'm like, yeah, but for what? Like I don't even know if this thing is really going to work, though you know. So for me, it was always that Like, how do I know that this business is going to pick up? How do I know that it can be scalable? How do I know? Let's test it and test the model. And so I put a lot of my own funds behind it, Guy. I was poor, I was poor, that's actually my next question I was poor Kels.
Speaker 2:You did all these jobs, all these contracts, all these gigs, but you always funded the whole project. I think, even when I visited you or something, I'm the only maybe okay, maybe I should not shout out to myself, but I'm the only guy who came all the way just to see, after even the program, because I think I mentioned that guys, this is just a program that lasted maybe a few months, but when you go to implement this, you need some soberness, you need to learn and relearn. Right, and I made an intentional visit, and I think this was a bit also selfish, because by then, actually, I think I mentioned that if I did not, I was going out to become an artist or a musician or something. I was like you have a studio, let me come and see how does that environment look like, and this is something I do a lot. For sure, when I want to do something, I visit some place where this thing is happening and feel if my soul is at peace. Then I come and I find you with a studio.
Speaker 2:You guys are busy doing a lot of things Working, drawing some ideas on the wall, you reading, as usual. You have a show. It was a bit organized. Wow, this is as usual. You have a show. You know it was a bit organized. You know like, wow, this is amazing. And then I find a guitar in that academy, not even still there. I tried to play it and that gave me some sort of thought like, am I really ready to be an artist? What does it really take? Actually, for me it was also a learning moment, because when you told me you're using all your funds to run everything. You don't want the space to be closed For some reason, I said, okay, let me first look for a lot of money.
Speaker 3:A lot of money.
Speaker 2:So that when I start this one, it's not going to stop as you speak. So far, so good. I'm not Diamond or, you know, alikiba, or whoever, but they can never be you. I thank God, they can never be you.
Speaker 3:They thank God.
Speaker 2:But, Kels, how did you manage? Because I know for you it was real time, Like you're working for this project, you're funding this other project and that's hard, especially for someone with a family and you have your personal needs and all that. Was it the drive to impact? Was it the drive to bring change? What is that? I don't know if you still do it, but yeah it's something that's really important for impact innovators to understand.
Speaker 3:Okay, so one of the things that I normally say. It's something that I say to myself, and I cannot imagine a day passing without me adding anything to the world. I'm like then what's the what's the point of me, my life, what's the value of my life if I'm not bringing anything and I don't have a contribution? Yeah, yeah. And so everything that I do and I think since, again since childhood. There are so many challenges in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nowadays, impact innovation has become such a cliche and such a fashionable space that I find, in many instances, people are not innovating to solve challenges, they're innovating for fame, which is a problem.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 3:And that's why we have several innovations that they'll go out. They will, they will gain momentous fame and recognition and then they'll fizzle out. After five years. I'm like how many? What has it changed? What are your KPIs for this number of years? Like, talk to me about what exactly is it solving? What are we building exactly? And you cannot find that story. I, for me, I would rather, michael, spend five years building something that I know for the next 50 years it will do something revolutionary. I am not in a hurry. I am not in a hurry to build something that will fail. I am going to take time, understand myself and because one of the things about the innovation journey you're also changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You're also changing, you're learning and the environment is also changing and we put pressure on ourselves to create the next best thing in a year. That is some bs, and I feel that even for a lot of innovative venetian innovation projects, that's some bs. Yeah, we do these boot camps and you want somebody to come up with something that's going to solve one, two, three in one week. Are you nuts? Because that problem has a life on its own, of its own. Now, if that person is not going to be invested in understanding, we keep saying fall in love with the problem. But you're told to fall in love with the problem is basically go on Google and search. You have no clue, especially for a lot of people and I'm going to speak for gender A lot of people who are innovating within gender space, a lot of people who are innovating within gender space. I'm like you have no clue.
Speaker 3:How many girls have you sat down and talked to outside of a focus group, a control focus group, in your office? How many streets and slums have you visited? How many young, pregnant girls have you talked to? How many raped girls have you talked to? How many boys who have sisters, who are suffering from one, two. Have you talked to how many parents have you talked to? How many parents have you talked to? How many teachers have you talked to how many?
Speaker 3:And when you say girls, it's not just one age group. Have you spoken to them across age groups? Do you understand their perceptions and how those perceptions change? Because most of the time somebody will say I'm innovating for girls, but listen me. At 13, I am very different from how I am at 15. I was very different at 17. I'm every single age, especially because at that age hormones are up and down, and even all the way girls do not stop changing. Until you're what your 40s, we change. And it's not just 40s, we consistently change. And this is the same thing for men. But I'm just speaking specifically because my example is around gender and tech for girls and tech for girls. Yeah, so when you say I'm innovating for women, I'm like which one? All my programs for women. I'm like which ones? Single mothers, married women.
Speaker 2:The one who are affected by FGM, the one who are affected by HIV.
Speaker 3:University students staying in university, out of it. I'm like, give me the persona, break it down. Which woman is this for? Or if you're telling me all women, then if we go into the criteria of your program, you will have drawn out all these personas and found a way to meet the specific needs of each one, because we have this blanket statement I'm innovating for women. I'm like Bias, did you spend time to actually understand this person? What she's thinking, her needs, her changing desire, human behavior, what actually makes her make a decision? But even if you're innovating for her, you cannot just question her. Question her ecosystem, because she does not exist in a silo. Talk to the men, talk to the brother, talk to the teacher. If you're innovating for students, speak to the ecosystem. If you're innovating for the woman and this does not take one month, one week, it takes time.
Speaker 3:And back to impact innovation. What gives me my drive is, like I said, michael, I want to create something and I always say it that outlasts me, outlasts generation. I want my granddaughter to be able to be alive. And it's not even just saying my grandmother had to do no, but to say that they thought of us. No, but to say that they thought of us, because for most of the problems that I faced as a child, if somebody stood before I was born and created a solution to it, I would not have gone through it, and most of the challenges that I've been through are very silly for us to have not created solutions to and perhaps there are many people who could have created solutions to them, but they didn't think that it was important. Somebody else will do it. So I am here. As long as we are here and we're talking about impact innovation, let's truly create for impact and not for fame. And impact is not something that just lasts two years after your grant funding is run out.
Speaker 2:And I have to speak about this.
Speaker 3:We talk about impact innovation, we talk about grants and it has to be funded. I'm like, when those funds run out, can?
Speaker 2:it be self-sustainable.
Speaker 3:And we talk about self-sustainability as this. I'm very uncomfortable with how we refer to a program or a product being self-sustaining. I'm like it has to be the fabric around which you create it. That grant funding can come in, but it should not come in at the very beginning. It has to come in and just put fuel to a flame that was already there and that should also be able to fuel your sustainability model and not to be the end all be all, because there are too many programs that just die because money ran out. We could not rent the fancy office, I could not pay myself, and so I'm going to close it down. Then you did not start it for the right reasons in the first place, and so the reason that I'll do all these projects and I'll do all the things that I do and I'm like I want to find something that can outlast me.
Speaker 2:Kelzi, something you said when I visited you and I'll never forget, I still have not forgotten when. I still have not forgotten when, actually I interrogated the academy, the dance academy, and actually I saw a couple of sessions.
Speaker 2:Interrogated is the word you did and one of the things that you told me that actually made me actually get convinced that it might not happen in the next five years or ten years, but it's going to happen. It might not even be you who will do it, but what you started actually will get us there. So you told me you want to start juliet's academy of dance.
Speaker 2:I want to start an african juliet level academy of dance, and I was like what is juliet? Maybe I didn't ask this verbally, but what is doing? And afterward I checked out Juliet and I was so convinced I was like you know what, let me keep this contact. And one way or the other there's a reason. Maybe you say that how is that going?
Speaker 3:So what I said was I want to start Juliet for Africa.
Speaker 3:So basically, it's not Juliet in Africa, it is that I was talking about that level of professionalism and not just for dance but for the creative arts, and the whole idea is marrying the creative arts and where it's come to the creative arts with the sciences and technology. And so, basically, creative arts, innovation of the sciences and creating a space where artists you know this thing where whenever we're talking about the creative economy, people think, oh, it's just musicians and writers. I am like scientists are creatives. Data scientists have a massive challenge right now. When COVID hit, I was given this example at the Data Tamasha last week whereas when COVID hit, we had a lot of data being generated in real time, but we had a big challenge. The biggest challenge was how do you make that data, how do you visualize that data in a way that a layman would understand it and be able to use it to make informed decisions? And we had a lot of data out there and information well translated into information, but people were not able to use it to make informed decisions because of how we were presenting that information role to play in the sciences, because what it helps to do is communicate different experiences, different pieces of information, different perspectives in a way that people can consume them and connect to them more, so actively. And we have not connected those two so far.
Speaker 3:So, unleashed Academy for Creative Arts and Leadership. I'm going to tell you right now that the name is going to change, by the way, and launch unveil the brand soon. But, um, we're still in that space and what we're starting off with is an artist development program called nsani imar. We're going to relaunch it next year, really looking at now creating a space where they're exposing creatives to a lot more than just, yeah, a dance workshop. Yeah, I'm like, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I'm like it can like it can be more, so I'll be more at liberty to speak about that. When we're about to launch, I'll definitely get in touch with you and we'll go into that a little bit more.
Speaker 2:No worries, girls. What do you think the tech has to play a part? Now that you're saying you're using it actually even to fast track some of your launch, some of your experiences, some of the surveys or sites that you're doing, do you think that maybe what could have taken five years now can take half of that time?
Speaker 3:So basically what? How is tech accelerating?
Speaker 2:the work that we're doing.
Speaker 3:Yes, I guess it's giving us different ways to think about how to solve big problems, yeah, right, and the fact that, listen, we still have a massive problem with connectivity. We cannot avoid those conversations, true, true, but the great thing is it's giving us new ways to be creative, new ways to think about solving for problems, that we have new ways to connect and then, even in terms of even organizing our own thoughts and projecting towards the future, it's giving us tools that allow us to do that, and so I feel like, again, tech is a tool. That's what it is, that's all it is. Tech is a tool. That's what it is, that's all it is. Tech is a tool.
Speaker 3:If you have no innovative spirit, innovative thinking, if that creativity lacks, tech will do nothing for you. It will do nothing for you. There are too many people creating apps that will have no life out there. I'm pretty sure people will come to you, michael, I want to create an app for one, two, michael, but I want to create an app what? For one, two, three, but I want to create an app for $2,000. I'm like, good luck to you, good luck to you, but yeah, tech is an enabler. That's all that it is, and it enables us to do and to move the visions and the dreams that we have along. Tech is not the end all be all, but then we have a big challenge right now, even in the impact space, where everybody wants to come up with something. Tech and I'm like but what exactly are you calling tech? And to a lot of people, tech is an app. I'm like technology is something that helps you do something better, and so it doesn't matter how you disseminate it.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. So even the way they're stable is this this was a technology at some point Like this this is something else. I mean, sorry, this is a was innovation at some point, Right? So, um, so, yeah, it's definitely helping, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, uh, on that note, and it's kind of exciting, so you said you have more than one product. As you actually conclude today's conversation, no comment, which means we will have more discussion on different aspects, because I like even how you look at church, spirituality, involvement of dance and music into those activities. There's a festival. You invited me before I left and, by the way, we're talking about 2017 or 2018 or 2016. I can't even remember which year it was.
Speaker 3:When you came, it was 2016.
Speaker 2:2016,. Right, I wish I could have attended, because then, of course, I could have had something to contribute, but I could not be able to. So those are conditions that I actually can have when I come back or when you come to Nairobi, because some of these conversations, actually I see them playing a part in influencing or educating people on certain things that we are taking for granted, and all ends the other side taking us for granted for it. So in this case, would you like to shed some light? You don't have to say what you're launching, but at least the impact Just for lack of a better word and not in the realm of throwing the words around that it's going to have in this, because your mission actually looks like it has several, several impacts along the way In the nature that is focusing on girls, on gender, and it's not just specifically girls, but gender and issues that relate to that. So do you want to shed some light on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So, just so, the, the, the what you're talking about specifically is the product that's going to launch next week, right, so so we, we do have products within the creative economy that sorry, the creative industry that are mostly so creative products and this is not just for this is not girl child specific, it's for creatives. And then we have work that we're doing within the social enterprise space. So, for example, we have the show called Nipedili, which is basically Africa's shark tank for social enterprises. Wow, but haven't you watched it, michael? I have, you have.
Speaker 2:The reason why I didn't want to go into that is I watched one episode and I had my own opinion. You have your, it's bad Maybe that should be another, separate conversation altogether. A hundred percent. I have a lot to say with these shantag prototypes that we have you know. We see, and in Kenya actually I have story for this See something, it's not bad in essence. But the way we implement it, it's always straightforward. You guys end up getting hurt.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that's the case, One of the things with Nipadili, though, it's not that people just come in and pitch. There's actually they went through a. So there was the Tudyengi TZ Innovation Challenge, which was something that Unleashed Africa did. That was financed by Hans Seidel Foundation.
Speaker 3:We do that together with True my Asia and so innovators, entrepreneurs, got training in entrepreneurship. They went through a mentorship period. So there was an entire program that they went through for months, right, and then from there, miped. There was an entire program that they went through for months and then from there, mipedili was an investor matchmaking component, and we were thinking about how do you do it in a way that people who are not part of these ecosystem, people who are not part of the four walls of these trainings, can get to kind of understand what are the different things that people speak to speak about on the other end, because in many of our communities, people are not privy to those conversations. So how do you use media to kind of open that door to say, well, these are the conversations that are being had, these are the concepts that are being spoken about, and so, basically, for us, nip is a is an arm of exposure so it's not.
Speaker 3:Do not just think about it in terms of what it's doing for the entrepreneur who's pitching, but what it's doing for the person who's watching. I cannot tell you how many stories I have had of entrepreneurs who binge watched to find.
Speaker 3:okay, so these are the things that I should write, these are the concepts that I should have and so so, even before they went to their first accelerator. So that was a big objective for us. So it's not even the objective that, for example, they do Shark Tank with. Those are not ours. And another thing also was to get our entrepreneurs seen. We have several entrepreneurs who were on Nipedili and I can speak. Well, I've not gone consent to share their stories here, so I won't, but they were able to. So one of the stories he a founder in actually UAE, saw him on Nipedili, so where other people see them and are able to call them. So there was just also that visibility aspect. Right, and you've done a short pitch and you're seen. So some people don't necessarily care about what the investors are telling you. I just want to see what you have to say, because people are looking for entrepreneurs in East Africa.
Speaker 3:But what we're launching next week, what we're launching next week is Rise Up. Rise Up is Africa's first digital safe space for girls. So Rise Up is right now. The MVP is what we're launching. It's still a progressive web app. It's going to become an application next year when we launch Rise Up 2.0. But it's a community, sorry, it's a platform where girls can get access to a few things. I like calling it Instagram for girls the opportunity, the Instagram of opportunities, but for women, women only. Again, women only. If you're a man and you join Rise Up, you shall be booted, trust me, you shall be booted off, but but yeah, so they get access to curated opportunities. So there's a big thing about women not being when you put out an opportunity out there. The conversation is you know, the percentage of men, the ratio between the men and women applying is very disproportionate.
Speaker 2:Women do not apply to opportunities?
Speaker 3:Why? Yeah. I'm going to ask you why it can be for another. I have a lot of whys, yeah. From the research that we've done, we have a lot of whys?
Speaker 2:I've also been asking myself why.
Speaker 3:But so basically so that's a conversation for another day that Rise Up can actually answer to, because we have a lot of this data but so it's a platform where women get curated opportunities, information on opportunities. So from jobs, internships, volunteer scholarships, conferences, basically the different events, etc so they're funding the eight different types of opportunities that will get there. So when you're getting on Rise Up, it will ask you questions. It will ask the woman not you, but women, if you were a woman questions about themselves and it will curate the experience to your needs. So if I get on Rise Up and I'm like, well, depending on where I am with my dreams right now, this is what I'm looking for, it will give you that information. But it will also connect you to other information. So in case, for example, perhaps you're not looking for an internship and that's not what you've selected, but maybe you have a relative once, that that's information that you can still have. Yeah, it works really well for somebody who is here. You probably need to go and rise up to get what. I mean. It's pretty well built, if I have to say so myself. It also gives her access to a learning lab.
Speaker 3:So what we do again, we curate information. So sexual productive health, so. So there's health and fitness, there's entrepreneurship, there's innovation, there's career guidance and there is another that I am from personal branding right, so you. So we have content that we don't create ourselves, but we work with different partners to get this content. Some content we get on youtube. What we do is you curate, curate an experience that has a woman learning things from Right now. We tell people just go on YouTube, just go online. I'm like listen, the World Wide Web is a World Wide Web for a reason and it has spiders that can eat you up.
Speaker 3:So when you're telling a young girl, go online and it's not necessarily a safe environment out there- how are you sure that the information she's getting will not necessarily put her in a compromising situation, which most times is what happens. So we curate that information, but we also give different partners an opportunity to put information out there. So we have a community of about 5,000 girls. Basically, it's organic growth, so we have this is pre-launch, by the way, so you have access to that. But another thing that we have and I love about Rise Up we also have a community, so it's basically your WhatsApp, but on this platform, and I just have to mention this here. So Rise Up is age segmented 13 to 15, 16 to 18, 19 to 25, 26 to 35, have a very different experience on Rise Up.
Speaker 3:The way you're going to talk about sexual reproductive health to a 13-year-old and most of them come in through their parents' phones, by the way is very different from how you're going to talk about it to a 26-year-old. So we curate those experiences based on the age segmentation. So we also have okay. One of the findings that we got as we were experimenting was the power of community to reinforce and encourage a woman to uptake an opportunity to engage in a conversation. So Rise Up is community, but not only that. It also allows the people within our community Rise Up community to create sub-communities for themselves.
Speaker 3:So it's communities within a larger community, and what Rise Up is also going to be able to allow women to do. So that's not available in this iteration, but in the next iteration it's going to be something that we're working on. You're also going to be able to report abuse. So in the workspace, in any space, you find some sort of abuse. Somebody touches you, like I was touched, somebody touches your bum and you don't want that. You can come through and say one, two, three here, right, but we're also going to have counseling available on the platform. So if you need to talk to a counselor, you see that's also going to be available there as well. So, basically, what it is like we're calling it. So, like I said, it's a digital safe space where we have where we give access or we curate. And the reason I use the word curate we have where we give access or we curate, and the reason I use the word curate if a company or an organization has any scandal, we will not put you up. Why not.
Speaker 3:If we do put you up, we're going to put a disclaimer next to it. There are too many companies that are out there that women go to and they face so much abuse and we do not speak about this because basically it's like I'm sending a goat out for slaughter so I am not going to put it up there. So again, there's a team that literally comes through before putting anything up there.
Speaker 2:So if it's there, it really has been.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's been vetted.
Speaker 2:So I was to ask now that if someone touches, you, you have to put there, and the only thing that you get is counselling. Someone touches you. You have to put them. The only thing that you get is counseling.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So the counseling and the report abuse are two different things. There's a counseling where they actually they'll get access to counselors, so if you have faced any trauma of some sort and so on and so forth, that's, that's your own counseling. The report abuse button is something completely different. So we're working with different associations that deal with law, legal issues, to be able to take on those cases and make sure that these women get justice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a connection between people who can take action and the reporting.
Speaker 3:Yes, 100%.
Speaker 2:Is that the part that actually I didn't get?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's common. The counselling and the report abuse are two different things.
Speaker 2:Okay, and all of them are voluntary.
Speaker 3:For the girls themselves. Yes, so it's your own experience. We don't get.
Speaker 2:Now that you don't welcome men in this platform and you said we need an ecosystem. How is that possible in this platform? And you said we need an ecosystem? How is that? How is that possible in this, in this platform?
Speaker 3:well, we, as we were building, we approached it, we approached the ecosystem. So we spoke to um girls primary, secondary, high school. We spoke to university students, we spoke to graduates. We spoke to fathers, we spoke to mothers, we spoke to teachers, we spoke to religious leaders, we spoke to um community leaders. So we, literally, we spoke to brothers, we spoke to teachers, we spoke to religious leaders, we spoke to community leaders. So, literally, we spoke to brothers. We spoke to the ecosystem as we were building it.
Speaker 3:Looking at these are the challenges that women face, that girls face. What are the ways? What ways do you feel? Can I share one story as we're wrapping up, please?
Speaker 3:So, in one of the focus groups we were doing with parents, by the way, when we were interviewing fathers I mean, sorry, parents I actually expected more mothers to show up. I really did. 90% of those who showed up were men. Shocking. We were discussing challenges that girls face. The ones who showed up were men and after you know, when you're conducting a focus group, it's also really important to create a safe space for those you're speaking to, for them to speak freely. Most of the times that we run these sessions, they're so technical and they're so theoretical, that people are not sharing freely, right. And so we got to a point where one of the fathers 62-year-old man, he broke down finally and he said listen, if my daughter comes to me and she asks me, she tells me oh dad, here's my dream, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3:And, by the way, we had this focus group with parents after we spoke with all the girls and the biggest point of contention from them were parents, that the parents were the biggest cause of our downfall. Our insecurities start and end with our parents. It was that. And mostly fathers Fathers are not present and we were not just speaking to middle class, we spoke across, you know, socioeconomic strata and the answers were very, very, very related. But so this man says I, when my daughter comes to me and she has a dream and she tells me about it, she tells me I want to do one, two, three. And I'm trying to translate it into Swahili, in English, because he said it in Swahili, it makes a lot of sense in my, in my.
Speaker 3:Sahili in my head. But yes, but he says how can I tell this girl that I don't know how to help her as a father and as a man of the house? The moment I am to tell this girl that I can't help her, I am lowering my value and my position in her mind. And so what am I going to tell her? I am going to chase her away, tell her to talk to her mother. I'm going to tell her who do you think I am? Don't bother me with such problems. Not that I don't want to help her. It's because I do not know how to.
Speaker 3:I don't have that network, I don't know where to send her to, where she can be safe, and so I will chase her away. And he was saying this very emotionally, in Swahili, of course, and for those Swahili speakers, you know how this lands. It was a very heavy conversation. I will chase her away, but in my heart of hearts, I know what she's going to face out there. But I am not going to malign my image as dad, as father baba, in front of this woman, of this girl, and so I will do that to save face so if I have somewhere where I can take my daughters and know that they will be safe.
Speaker 3:bring it to us yesterday, yeah. So, when it comes to you know that ecosystem right People within the ecosystem many, especially parents, do want to be there for their children. Many just don't know how to, because either they were not taught or the environmental circumstances that they have been have, they have been rendered into.
Speaker 3:Do not afford them the luxuries and I'll call them luxuries to be, able to know, because most of them are also going through traumatic, massive traumatic experiences. Yes, so this for us is not just a space, that a platform that's going to be helpful to the girls. It's going to also be helpful to those within their ecosystems to be able to support them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome, awesome. So, girls, thank you so much for sharing your story today, and it's it's, it's quite, it's quite an amazing, amazing story. I know it's just past red. There's some details that I would love to ask about, but since you know, we are all here in the world, given that God blesses us with that, what would be your parting shot, you know, for our listeners.
Speaker 3:Can I look into this camera Please? Nice, okay, so my parting short would be I'm just angling it properly. Seriously, my parting short.
Speaker 2:Kels, were you in the media for some time? No, I should be, you should be, I should be, are you?
Speaker 3:giving me a job. But really my parting short is this but really my parting shot is this there are too many problems in the world for us not to be the solutions to them. There are too many of us pointing fingers looking for other people to solve for things that we know innately. We have a piece of the puzzle, for there's no person on this planet that has the entire jigsaw puzzle fitted in of how you can solve a problem, but every person comes with a piece of puzzle. Now, when we together do the bits that we can and agree to connect, we can clearly see how the entire puzzle fits in.
Speaker 3:So those are two things. One, make sure that you're part of the solution. Make sure that you are part of the solution, and that could mean learning and learning. Do not be too proud, especially dear African. Do not be too proud to say you do not know. Go out there and find the answers.
Speaker 3:If you are an innovator and you are saying that you're solving a problem and you tell me that you're only going to spend a week, a month, a few months to figure out what that problem is, you're lying to yourself, you're lying to the world.
Speaker 3:Invest time in understanding the intrinsic sub causes, to the causes that are causing that problem to be in existence.
Speaker 3:Submerge yourself in really understanding that problem so that solution could also be holistic, and then, on the other end, let's be comfortable with growing the mental fortitude to collaborate actively so that these solutions can connect and scale at rapid levels, because right now we have different people doing different things. Everybody wants to be called a founder, a CEO, a what have you, a CIO, whatever you want to be called. That's not helping us take our continent forward and most of the problems that exist still exist because people are too proud to connect, are too proud to really step in and sacrifice, do what they need to do for us to come up with the solutions we need to. We are living in the dreams of our forefathers. There was too much bloodshed, too much sacrifice given for us to be complacent and to not take on the mantle that has been passed on to us. What are we going to pass on to the next future generations? It is time we keep saying Africa's time is now, but Africa's time, it will only be Africa's time when people stop sleeping in mediocrity.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I agree, I agree. Thank you so much, kels. It's always an honor to always have this conversation with you. It's just that now we're having them with the mic and recorded right, and Kea is actually I don't know, maybe I don't know. I feel like you need most of this platform. It touched so many people Even when we were having this conversation. Actually, I could hear you speak to some specific people in this conversation it might not sound like it, even through your life experiences.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to our viewers, our subscribers, who will give us feedback of what actually they learned from it and what some action points they can start, maybe even taking their life. But for me, as I've made it a habit now, I'll part short with the African proverb, especially coming from Tanzania and maybe borrowed from Tanga and Mubasa Umodya ninguvu Unity is power. There's nothing as important as African countries coming together with a purpose, and the purpose is to end the suffering of poverty, because I feel like Africans are quite united. All these ula balu of you know all these other problems. If we really deal with poverty, everything else becomes a mirage and you can deal with it simply. So I'll end it there.
Speaker 2:This was Impact Masters. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on our YouTube channel, follow us on different podcast channels that we have from Spotify, itunes and Google. You'll also find us on Amazon Music. As Impact Masters and Africa Stalking Retold. Leave a comment, a like and if you like the guests, we can always host them again. Please let us know, but don't forget we feature impact masters across Africa telling African stories so that when you listen to them, you should be able to learn one or two things, as well as make sure that we build our own legacy when we are alive. Thank you so much. Until next time, I'm Michael Kemadi.
