#48 IMPACT MASTER KHALILA MBOWE (KELLZ): FROM ARUSHA TO AFRICA'S CREATIVE ECONOMY AND TECH FOR GENDER #africa #innovation #socialimpact #entrepreneurship

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Welcome once again.
Welcome, welcome Once again.
We're in Tanzania, the blessedto have one and only, but before

(00:31):
that, this is Michael Kimadi,your host, and this is Impact
Masters, in collaboration withAfrica's Talking Podcast.
You'll find us on YouTubeTalking Podcasts.
You'll find us on YouTube,google Podcasts, apple Podcasts,
spotify Podcasts, among as manyother channels, such as TikTok,

(00:58):
twitter and all the channelsthat you listen to.
Our guest today is Papas Groundin Africa, social innovator,

(01:22):
impact business.
She has been building startupson creative economy for some
time now and she's alsointerested in tech for gender,
which she'll be telling us moreabout, and social impact
business development.
A great speaker and a writerDon't take my word for it and

(01:51):
she ain't your ordinaryexecutive.
A global shaper at WEFInitiative.
African Transformation EnablerSocial entrepreneur out to build
great African business brands.
African Transformation EnablaSocial Entrepreneur Out to Build
Great African Business BrandsCurrently building Startup
focused on the creative economy,tech for gender and impact

(02:12):
business development.
Welcome, khalil Mboy, or Kels,if you want.
How are you Kels?
Hey, hey, I just had to readthat bio so that when I ask
about you, you don't tell methat yeah.
So, kels, let's start from thebeginning.

(02:34):
So here we try to tell ourAfrican story Just straight from
where it started.
Where did yours start?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
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 (02:47):
Where were you born?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
I was born here.
I was actually not born here inDar, but I was born in Arusha,
ngarinaro.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
So you know Wale Wachuga Archuga.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
I have no idea, I was born there and then I was
imported, export, imported,exported to da, imported from
marusha.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So I grew up here in dar yeah, those guys have been
trending for days like they havetheir own culture.
That is really impressive yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah yeah so when
you talk about uh, that's thefirst thing that comes to my
mind.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Archuga.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
There's a way they talk.
Do you know how they talk?

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I can't even do it.
They're like their own countryguy.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yes, yeah.
So did you school here in Ndaraall your life.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah, so I went to school here in Ndara Primary
school, I did Olympio, I didacademic, I did St Mary's's, and
then I went to a place calledSanya Yu in Moshi, vigigini
Interia.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
That is primary.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
No, this was.
This was form one and form two.
I was supposed to go into formfour 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 afence.
I remember the headmistressused to tell us run away and see
where you go.
We didn't need a fence becausewhere do you go?
Yeah.

(04:13):
So I went to school there andthen I came back to Dar St
Mary's, so largely I've schooledin TZ In Dar es Salaam, in TZ
TZ, basically Dar es Salaam.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
So how was that experience like Going for, you
know, the normal schools, as youcall them, which I feel like at
some point they were not.
That normal Is St Mary's public.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
St Mary's is a private school, so I have a
feeling I was a pioneer in allthe schools I went to One of the
pioneers.
So academic Right now whatacademic international school is
is not what it was when I was astudent at academic.
I was a student at academicwhen it was literally a
classroom in somebody's garage.

(04:54):
It was a startup.
It was a startup when I was astudent.
We had little desks.
That's when I was a student atacademic and St Mary's.
I joined St Mary's when it wasin its first year.
The founder of St Mary's atthat time she used to come pick
us with there was this littlerundown heist and she used to
pick up each student and we'd goin the early morning.

(05:16):
We'd go to a bakery to getbread.
That would be the bread thatwe'd use during break time and
so we'd read and then we'd go toshops and buy margarine with
her.
Then we'd go all the way toschool.
It was like that.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Sounds like fun.
So were you like this laid backkid or just outgoing, as you
are right now?

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Okay, so I In my head , I was very outgoing In my head
, in my mind, I was veryoutgoing.
I love people, but I'm one ofthose.
I'm an introvert.
I love my own space completely.
I'd love to sit down, read anddo nothing.
I mean, if I, if I did not seehumans for two months, I'd be
fine oh a hundred percent.

(05:57):
I'm just like I love you people,but I can take a holiday from
human being, um, but at the sametime, I love connecting with
people, which is quite theparadox, but anyway.
So I was a very I was a childwho loved to connect, but I
didn't know how to.
I didn't know how to because ofthe way I think about things,

(06:17):
the way I relate to things, theway I perceive things, I receive
information, they go into myhead and the way they come out
is very different From the way alot of the other children used
to see it, and so, as a kid, I'dsay I was the odd one out,
always, always, I remember beingbullied in school.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Were you bullied.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
I was a bullied guy.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
In high school.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
No, this is in primary school.
Which class?
So, gosh, I was bullied fromgrade 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 mymom was a Chaga woman who made

(07:03):
sure I could speak the language.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
How did she do that?

Speaker 3 (07:06):
So she had this Chaga accent but she realized that we
love to read very early on andshe instilled that culture very
early on.
There was no choice, there wasno TV.
We didn't have a TV and sothere were books.
So she would buy books and weused to love reading books.
And then she I was raised by asingle mom, by the way, and you

(07:28):
know she had very modestearnings, and I say modest, with
a capital and underlying thatkind of life, and she bought she
used little money that she hadand she bought her a cassette
recorder, and so what she usedto tell us is read, then record
yourself reading, then listen toyourself wow, right, that's how
you practice.

(07:49):
Yes, the words right that's amemory 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 isthe every single time we did
manage to go to a house ofsomebody who owned a tv, news
was in english.

(08:09):
Tom and jerry was not speakingin swahili.
True, true, tom was speaking inenglish, the burpees were in
english, everything was inenglish.
So in my mind, everything greatis in english.
And then when you happen towatch news with the adults, it
is, it is shambles.
I remember there was a show onitv called uh madira, ya wiki, I
think something like that, andit was about the potholes, it

(08:31):
was about corruption, it wasabout somebody did, somebody
killed something.
And as a child I'm like me Idon't want this, I don't, this
is not the life I want.
And so of course I gravitatedand of course this is like very
childhood thinking I gravitatedto everything that I felt was
positive At that time.
It was English focused, and soI found myself really moving in
that direction.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Wow, that's fascinating because, given what
you're doing right now, itstarts to make sense that this
started from somewhere and yourmom is still there, right, my
mom passed in 2013.
How was she with your siblings?
How would you describe her?

Speaker 3 (09:08):
So my mother was a visionary, she was very
innovative, she was astoryteller, she was a fireball.
I'd say okay.
So we say God never makesmistakes, but she was born in
the wrong country.
Honestly, she was that good thewrong country, honestly.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
She was that good.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
She was that good For what my mom brought to the
table and what the circumstancesshe was born in gave to her.
I believe that if she had beenin a different environment, she
would have done amazing thingsfor this world.
And that was the kind of personshe was and, of course, just
like me, she was not understood.
For her to fit in anywhere, shehad to try so hard.

(09:51):
And you know, now, inretrospect, I can think of
things that my mom used to doand think you know guy she had a
hard time.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, so you feel you're not understood.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
I mean most times right and much better nowadays.
I mean most times right andmuch better nowadays.
I used to have a very one of myprayer points right when I was
younger.
I used to like, I used to sayGod, teach me how to make
friends, because I don'tunderstand these people and they
don't understand me.
Teach me, like, what do I say?
And so networking activitiesused to be and to some point

(10:24):
right now still are just a pointof anxiety.
I'm like I don't want to talkto you because I'm going to ask
you for something real.
A lot of people don't want tohave authentic conversations.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, people are living a lie.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
People are living the life that they feel they should
be living.
But I'm like let's try to havea real conversation.
And one of the things I reallyappreciate about people, by the
way and I have to say Iappreciate about you as well is
we can have like a realconversation.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
You are annoyingly honest you got punished for that
not long time ago.
I'll tell you off the mic Idon't wanna be blocked from
leaving this country, but I'lltell you that now that you're
talking about honesty but I feelalso people should appreciate

(11:12):
honesty- because that moves youforward in a good way.
But what can you do?
You can't control otherpeople's wishes and how they
live.
Right.
Yeah, so you finished highschool here in Dar right?

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I finished high school, yes, here in Dar.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Did you go to UDCM?

Speaker 3 (11:30):
No, I did not, I was not going to, I was done, I was
done, I was done.
You know one of the reallyfunny stories when I was in Form
6 here in TZ.
When I was in Form 6, Iremember there's a class that I
went to and I'm not going forclassmates who are with me that
remember this story but therewas a teacher who used to find
offense in the fact that I usedto ask many questions In English

(11:53):
no, it was English medium, butthen I used to ask questions, so
the teacher would teach and I'mlike well, I think I've read
somewhere else and what you'resaying is not necessarily
factual, and so I would ask aquestion.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
And so, yeah, you made enemies with your teacher.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Like Kwakweli, they made enemies with me, With you,
Me.
I'm just asking a question as astudent.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
I am asking you are curious to learn.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yes, and my curiosity was punished severely.
I remember being in Form 4.
And we had an English exerciseto do and I remember, for the
first time, I was like I was atone of my uncle's house and my
uncle owned a computer.
Do you know?
Having a computer at home, Iwas in the clouds and I was like

(12:38):
you know, let me type thishomework.
I typed it For the first timein my life, that was my first
typewritten assignment and Iprinted it.
I was time in my life, that wasmy first typewritten assignment
and I printed it.
I was feeling like a millionbucks, mimi Yanni, bill Gates
was me, I was, it was me.
And I went to school andsubmitted it and I had
researched and for the firsttime I had references.
It was so good.

(12:58):
You know what the teacher toldme?
He told me he said how dare you, how dare you bring something,
uh, bring this work, and howdare 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 inthe staff room and he said, um,

(13:18):
oh, you didn't followinstructions and I said I wasn't
at school.
Um, so actually, the homeworkthat we got, we got a little bit
before.
So we got like two weeks afterbefore I submitted it and my
friends, my classmates,submitted it a week that I
wasn't in school because I wasill and I said I wasn't there
when you're giving furtherinstructions, but here's my work

(13:40):
.
And he said if you felt, if youfelt you couldn't submit the
work that was demanded, youshould have died.
I will never forget that man,ever.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's so cool.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
I was like I should have died because I typed an
assignment and you don't want meto submit it in the way I've
submitted it, yeah.
So comments like that and someteachers can be really cruel and
the kind of seed they plant instudents, those are seeds that,
unless intervention happens, alot of young people do not get

(14:14):
over that and those are thethings that actually stifle
innovation, Because people wantto try something new.
But you remember somethingsomebody crazy and completely
insecure about themselves toldyou and you don't move along.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
This is crazy.
I hear you and for sure.
If someone say that at thatlevel, I can only imagine what
went through your head and thatyou can't even forget it.
I cried.
Do you know what is common?
Do you know what is common withthe innovators?

(14:46):
All of them have traumatizingstories or life that they lived
in their past, and it should notbe like that, right, I think.
So that is the bad experiencein your high school.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Do you have a traumatizing story?

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I do.
Okay, a lot of them Not evenone Stories for days.
Maybe I'll record soon.
I keep telling all my gueststhat I'll do the podcast about
myself.
But the only problem I've notfound a host.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Hey, yeah, I shall travel all the way.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
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 (15:32):
Oh, you do A few of them.
Ah, yes, okay.
Okay, I've heard a bit of yourstory.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
You have.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
I have.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
From your own lips.
Ah, maybe that time we shouldhave recorded, should have
recorded, we should have.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
It could have made this easier, but no, no, no, no.
It is great, because now wehave a podcast waiting.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sounds good, let's make plans.
But, kels, that's the bad sideof high school, pasi or even
primary.
What's the good side?
What's that?
One thing or two things orthree things that actually you
remember in your high school orprimary school that really even
stopped the bullying?

Speaker 3 (16:08):
I feel like you're putting me on the spot.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Please, if you don't want to answer, say something.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Because I can't remember anything.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
You can't remember the good things.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
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 tellbullying stories because I feel
like it's kind of this victimmentality.
But I remember this particulartime when I was in boarding
school.
I remember I was in grade four.

(16:39):
You know this traumatizingincidents, you remember, you
remember, and even some of thepeople who did those, some of
those things I meet nowadays andI'm like I remember of course I
don't tell them, but yeah, but,um, I remember saying something
or asking a question thatsomebody felt was offensive,
which is really silly because inmy head I was making a joke.
It was a joke and she got theentire boys dormitory and the

(17:01):
girls' dormitory to follow.
You know how kids follow you ina crowd and they're jeering you
and others were doing this likethey're recording and they're
like you know others were actinglike 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 ingrade four?
I started grade one at fouryears old, so grade four I was

(17:25):
eight.
I was really young.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
No, that's still another bad experience it was
terrible.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
So basically, um, again primary school, I think.
Uh-huh, what I think was greatabout primary school, despite
all the fracas was there, wasthis kenyan teacher called Mr
Moses, and I remember his wife,madam Elizabeth.
I can never forget this too.
Wherever they are, guys, youguys made an impact in my life

(17:54):
and he was always a person Icould run to whenever I was
bullied, and somehow he sawsomething different in me.
So I started doing publicspeaking when I was in grade
four.
I'd get opportunities to writepoems and perform them at the
assembly or at the school'sactivities, which I was bullied

(18:16):
for by students, by the way.
So the teachers would be likewoohoo, great, great girls.
And then you get off stage andyour fellow students say oh, you
think you're old hat, you makeme look bad.
So they are envious or jealous,God at that point I didn't
understand it, but I hatedmyself for it.
Right, as a kid, you wantapproval from your friends, you

(18:37):
see.
But I do remember Mr Moses andMiss Elizabeth, and every single
time we had a performance Iused to love to dance, still do
she'd put me in, and every timeI danced she'd really applaud
that.
And then, of course, for allthe students would be like oh,
natchezasana, you're doing ittoo much, you shouldn't do.
Gosh, people can be cruel and,by the way, one of the things I

(19:00):
want to are cruel is becausethey get it from their parents.
I'm going to leave that there.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
So they don't do things that they don't see every
day.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
They learn these things, children learn these
things Moving on, that's not thepoint of the story.
In high school, I'd say again,being surrounded every single
time, you find there'd always beone person who would see what
you could do right and try topush you in that direction.
I'd say I had a lot of that inMr Moses and Miss Madam

(19:29):
Elizabeth, I'd say in highschool or secondary school, you
know, in Tanzania secondaryschool is from one to form four
and then high school is from six, from five and six.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
It used to be like that in East Africa, but yeah,
it changed.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
You guys.
But yeah, it changed you guys.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
You abandoned the system, yeah, basically so
people do four years inuniversity instead of two, like
before three.
But that's changing back forsome reason so we have what
they're calling CBC, which isdivided into like four segments,
so there's lower primary.
I mean you start like PP1, pp2and PP3, I think, and then you

(20:04):
go to lower primary.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
I mean you start like PP1, pp2, and PP3, I think yeah
.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And then you go to lower primary up to standard
four and then you graduate, thengo to upper primary school or
something.
Then you do three years up toclass seven and then you join
lower high school for two yearsand then another three years.
Kind of mumble out there.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
I do know in TZ they're working on scraping off
the standard seven.
I mean standard seven, so it'sgrade one to six and then you
move on to secondary school.
That's something that is in theworks currently.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
So I feel some type of way of the way we adopt some
of these of these, these kind ofcurriculums, the way they
change, because even for us, Ithink we are borrowing from
Finland or something they do CBCwait, curriculum based, cbc,

(21:04):
curriculum based it'scurriculum-based, cbc,
curriculum-based something.
And I feel like, yes, maybe the844 system did not work, which
I took, which I'm more familiarwith, but it's competitive and
then you get to explore theworld and then expertise on what
you have explored across theworld.
But when you say you're testingpeople from their talent or

(21:28):
what they're interested in, thenyou have to limit them from
what they can do or even limittheir career growth for some
reason.
So yeah, that's my opinion andI think maybe I stand corrected.
But also something else I foundwith that CBC is that it's too
expensive for parents.
Right.
Given the macroeconomics thatare going throughout the world

(21:50):
so.
I feel like if you're not reallywell off, you're still
disadvantaged.
More disadvantaged because evenwhen you're tested, you're not
tested amongst everyone.
It's just like segments of thattest goes to different
divisions, which really doesn'tgive you the real picture of

(22:11):
someone's intellectual.
So there's that.
But of course, since now wewere told we are leaders of
tomorrow and we are here now weare leaders.
It's something.
Actually we should be havingone more and try to see the best
way.
So you go to high school.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah, I go to high school.
I think, just building on whatyou said, if I just reflect back
, I think there is a criticalneed to teach children how to
think, Teach children how tothink, Teach children how to
coexist positively with othersand coexist in a way that you
can actually create solutionstogether rather than compete,

(22:53):
which is basically what thesystems right now are geared to
do.
I see you as competition andhence I'm going to react as per
that perception and so that initself it breeds a culture.
That culture of toxiccompetitiveness also breeds an
atmosphere where children arebullied in school right.

(23:14):
But then also, you know one ofthe things that again high
school, one of the things that Iappreciate about my experience
outside of high yeah was thefact that I read books.
I think books was always myescape, always my escape for
nerds, pardon for all nerds forall.

(23:36):
Nerds.
Books were my escape.
I, I remember.
I remember just locking myselfin spaces and just reading, and
just reading, and, and anddreaming of a different and
adverse reality consistently.
And I, I remember doing skitsand doing things in front of my
mirror.
At home we had this littlecracked up mirror.

(23:57):
The entire house would sharethis really cracked up mirror.
And I remember, whenever therewas nobody at home, I do things
in front of the mirror, justimagining that I was in a
completely different world thanthe one that I had to be in.
Because one of the things thatwe don't talk about is the fact
that even in the systems that wecreate and I'm not talking
about just in school, but evenin the homes we force kids to

(24:22):
what's the word?
To conform to a certain, to thelimits of what we, as parents,
have been exposed to.
Basically, our children areconformed to the limits of our
own exposure as parents.
And if we do not take it uponourselves to keep exposing
ourselves to new ways ofthinking, to new ways of being,
to new ways of parenting, to newways of innovating and allowing

(24:44):
our parenting to new ways of,you know, innovating and
allowing our minds to becreative.
Our children are also confinedand so there's no way when a
child comes to you and says andpeople think exposure is
traveling, and sorry, travelingand going, you know, to
different countries andexploring different
nationalities, but that's not it.
Exposure is actually actuallyeven just reading a book and
sitting down and having ameaningful conversation about

(25:06):
something different.
It's having a conversationseeing a pothole and saying, hey
, let's get together and talkabout how do we make sure that
potholes on the streets arenormal?
So let's research, let's dosomething together.
You're exposing my mind to adifferent way of thinking.
You're having the neuralpathways in a child's mind gets
to explore right further andalso being able to say well, I

(25:31):
do.
Sometimes I check on my lifewhen, when you have a parent,
you're like so what does yourchild want to be when they grow
up?
And like I want to, I want themto be like me.
I'm like why?
But why do you want them to belike you?
But who are you?
Why do you want them to be likeyou?
Yeah, but who are you?
Why do you want them to be likeyou?
You know, and I feel that wecan be and even as teachers we
can be very selfish in ourambitions.

(25:51):
And anyway, positive side ofhigh school is the books All the
way to.
I'm just going to jump touniversity because I literally
cannot remember many positivethings except for the books, and
also they're their friends.
You know, at the end of the dayit's a circle that you have and
I did get to try out differentthings and I'm really grateful

(26:12):
for that, for the people thatheld me down.
But then, moving into university, I did not do university in
Tanzania, I did university inTaylor's university campus in
Malaysia, wakatihu.
Back then, when there were veryfew Africans in Malaysia is
when we were there.
But before going to uni I did agap year, right, and I did a

(26:36):
gap year because, well, wecouldn't afford university, my
mom couldn't afford it, so we, Ihad to find ways to work and so
I did work in that year.
I got into that's when I beganmy career in advertising and
marketing.
I started off as a creativeassistant in my mom's company,
or a company that my mom washeading, and then I got into

(26:58):
copywriting.
So I worked with an advertisingagency called FCB Foot Coat and
Building.
It is normal in TZ.
I don't know about South Africawhere it was founded, but I was
doing copywriting for VodacomAdvertising.
This was 2007.
Yeah.
And then I went on to beingexecutive executive what do you
call it?
Account executive for VodacomAdvertising within that agency,

(27:22):
handling Vodacom Adverts andthen from there for photo com
advertising within that agencyhandling photo com adverts, and
then from there I went to uni.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
So what did this gap year teach you?

Speaker 3 (27:29):
now that you're earning a living and working, I
got to explore, okay, I got toexplore my writing.
Listen, you know, and you knowhow I got the job.
Michael, this is a funny story.
Yahoo messenger.
Every time I tell people aboutyahoo messenger, people don't
know about it.
Yahoo messenger was the bombcom.
I know about it, I know, youknow, yahoo was the bomb.
It was.

(27:50):
We had chat rooms and everything, and so I was on Yahoo
Messenger and I remember goinginto different chat rooms that
were very much aligned with someof the thinking that I had, and
I'd go in and people would be.
People would just come intothese spaces and argue for the
sake of arguing and I'm likewell, I like that.
You said that.
However, here's a different wayof thinking and I'd share these

(28:13):
things on different messengergroups.
And I remember this one day, agentleman on Yahoo Messenger I
don't even remember what theconversation was about, michael
and then he asked me hey, areyou 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, Iwas not having it.

(28:35):
I'm like you shall not talk tome like this online.
Do you know me?
Do you know me?
I was like you cannot.
You cannot talk to me just likehow.
But then he's like I'm like, doyou?
There is a job opportunity.
We're recruiting.
We're looking for a copywriterat FCB.
Are you able to come to?
It was PPF Tower right now andI said copywriter In my mind.

(28:58):
I have no idea what acopywriter does.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I'm like I just saw a writer and you're interested
now.
Just saw a writer and you'reinterested now because you used
to write.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
I used to write a lot , I still do and so I said and,
by the way, this day in Ilikwaand Meshoka, my mom had sent us
out to do research, because Iwas working for a company at the
time.
We had done research, and youknow, research on ground.
I was wearing sandals, so,trust me, my legs were a
different color, the color ofthe soil, because I was doing
surveys from morning to evening.

(29:26):
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 Iwent to town.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
That's Dala Dala.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
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 (29:54):
From the guy.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yes no from the guy.
No from the guy Because he metme at the ground floor, took me
up.
It's like we've beeninterviewing for a copywriter
all day.
We haven't found somebody.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
And how do you know him?
He's just through the, it'slike we've been interviewing for
a copywriter all day.
We haven't found somebody.
And how do you?

Speaker 3 (30:07):
know him Yahoo Messenger.
You guys were chatting.
No, he used to be in the chatroom, so he used to see my
responses.
Literally, that was it.
So he used to see my responsesand so he's like I think you'd
be very good at it.
He's like you have wittycomments and I'm like I don't
even understand what he comments.
Maybe I was just saying I wasjust responding, just being you.
Yeah, I was just being me.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
From the books.
I don't know To the chats.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
And so I was just responding and then eventually
he says, well, I need you to seethe MD.
I didn't even know what thelong form of MD was.
I'm like, okay, I need to seean MD.
And I'm like, what is an MD?
Of course I didn't ask.
I'm just like, okay, I need tosee somebody called MD.
And so he took me to I think itwas at the 12th floor and his
name was I don't remember hisname, but he was an MD that was

(30:53):
very much feared at the time andhe asked me a bunch of
questions.
He asked me a bunch ofquestions connected to the work
and I responded them in the bestway I knew how.
So he asked me about to.
He showed me some photos and hetold me what I would.
And I came to realize laterthat those photos were ads.
And he said what would youwrite to accompany this?

(31:15):
And I said so I'm like, oh,this could be this and this
could be that.
And I was just having aconversation and then he said,
come on Monday, you're hired.
Oh, now I know he's like do youspeak Swahili?
I'm like, yeah, I speak Swahili.
My Swahili was terrible but Isaid I speak Swahili, but I was

(31:35):
honest.
I was like I speak streets.
I can speak Swahili to getthrough my life in the streets,
but corporate Swahili notnecessarily.
But streets but corporately notnecessarily.
But I can learn.
Atc is like come on Monday.
Actually he said come on Friday.
So I came to see the creativedirector at the time and he
asked me a question every youngperson should not be asked,
especially if it's their firstLike how much do you want to get

(31:55):
paid?

Speaker 2 (31:58):
You have never been paid before.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
Never Trust me.
I was working for my mom.
Which is she paying you forwhat?
She's giving you food on thetable and a roof on top of your
head, you're good.
Right and I don't remember whatI said, but I should have said
more.
That's all I know.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
But they give you what you said.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
They gave me what I asked for, but of course their
budget was a lot higher thanwhat I asked for.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Oh my, goodness, people are so unkind in this
world.
Terrible yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Terrible yeah, but anyway.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Anyway, did you get the experience?
Was it worth it in terms ofexperience?

Speaker 3 (32:32):
It was great in terms of experience.
I got in, I did the job and ina month and a half I think I was
.
I was what do you call it?
When I was Promoted.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Promoted yes.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
I was promoted to account executive for those
adverts and then I had to leavefor uni.
I remember telling the generalmanager at that time that I'm
leaving and he thought I wasleaving to go to another agency.
And I kept saying no, I'm goingto uni.
I'm going to uni Because manyof them could not believe that I
had not gone through university.
And I said, yes, me guy, I onlyhave a from six education.

(33:06):
I don't.
I don't have a degree.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
They were surprised.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Yes, several were what Shock, shock on you.
Yeah, and and and, and, yeah,and I remember he.
They offered me a differentposition.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
They offered me an account manager position, so
that you don't go to uni.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, so that you don't go to uni.
Yeah, so that I don't leave.
I don't think they believed Iwas going to uni.
Ah Not at all.
He didn't believe whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
But did they improve your pay after proving yourself?

Speaker 3 (33:32):
They wanted to After going to uni.
No, I didn't come back there.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
But your pay was what you asked throughout the year.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
No, no, no, no.
When I got promoted to accountexecutive, my pay also increased
.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Ah account executive, my pay also increased.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
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 (33:56):
It's been 19.
What did you buy at 18?

Speaker 3 (34:00):
I think I was helping a lot with expenses at home.
That's nice, and I decided notto take a bus anymore.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
I was taking a lot with the expenses at home.
Ah, that's nice.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, and I decided not to take a bus anymore.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I was taking a taxi.
That's also nice.
Yeah, sometimes we beatourselves for treating ourselves
good and showing some gratitudeto people who actually
sacrifice everything for us.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
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 lotof clothes.
I used to be a shopaholic,because me, I'm growing up, I'm
growing up in Port of Erechte, Idon't have luxury of these
clothes.
And now I have the money.
Of course I was shopping.
I, of course I was shopping.

(34:43):
I was shopping Anyway.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
What else would you have done now that you know?

Speaker 3 (34:48):
So I'm very big in investing.
I'd have probably bought CRDBshares.
Ah, I definitely would havedone that.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Okay, not bought a plot or something.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
I would have bought the CRDB shares.
I'd start there.
Ah and then I'd have thoughtabout buying a plot A hundred
percent.
So those two things yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, okay, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Everyone makes mistakes.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Everyone makes mistakes.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
So you go to Malaysia , right, right, and this is a
new country.
I think Malaysia is a firstworld country, right?

Speaker 3 (35:24):
It's a developing country.
It's a developing country, it'sa developing country.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
So what is that experience for you?

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Well, I'm just going to say I didn't eat food for a
month.
I'm not adventurous with, likewith 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 cornflakesfor an entire month because I
would not dare experiment withnew foods.
But you know, all in all it wasa great experience and the

(35:54):
great things about it, I guess,was listen.
I'm coming from very differentfrom many of the students in my
class.
I've come from real lifeexperience.
I've worked in an agency and mycause was mass communication,
specializing in advertising, andthen there was an aspect of
marketing there.
But I've had this real lifeexperience and so, with the
concepts that they're teachingin uni in my mind, I already

(36:17):
know how to apply them on ground.
I can also say that I was, Iguess, considering I was coming
from this experience agencyexperience I was coming with it
into university.
I'd say that I was also verymuch.
I think there was a lot of prideinvolved Because you're coming,
it's not even the cup full.
My cup was half empty.
It was half full, and soeverything they were putting in

(36:42):
there was a lot of, and I havethe words to explain it now.
I didn't have it then.
There was a lot of contextmismatch, because the context
they were using to teach and howthey were approaching even
marketing strategies is verydifferent from how you'd
approach it here, right?
So some strategies worked forthere.

(37:02):
So, even even as the professors,the lecturers, were marking, I
would approach an assignmentthinking about my experience in
TZ, where I'm like, if we'relaunching something, this is how
we would go about it, right,and this is what would need to
happen for a campaign to beeffective, whereas on that end,
that's not effective, that's awaste of money, and I'm like,

(37:24):
well, the costs of running acampaign here and there are also
very different.
Whereas on that end, that's noteffective, that's a waste of
money, and I'm like, well, thecosts of running a campaign here
and there are also verydifferent.
But either way.
So again, now I have the wordsfor it.
Back then I didn't, yeah, butthere was a lot of learning as
well.
As always, I found soul lessonbooks.
I didn't go out much.
I had a very, very handfulgroup of friends.

(37:48):
Yeah, I think that's what I cansay about that.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
So in Malaysia, just to get the context.
Is it like if you are Auniversity student?
Is there like a party life,night life.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Oh my god, which country Doesn't have party life
for university students?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
which one tell me, which one so you have to choose
not to participate in thatlisten.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Let's be honest, listen for even my kids.
If you come to watch this laterThursday evening, I'm thinking
of my outfit for Friday.
When are you in?

Speaker 2 (38:22):
university.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
I'm in class the moment the last, the last lesson
is out.
I'm thinking okay, so what arewe doing tomorrow?
Where are we going?
I can already hear the musicguy.
I can already hear it.
I'm already bouncing, I'malready there.
Friday was always the night outkind of day.
I never drank, by the way, atall.
I was not a drinker, and thisyou know no drinking, no smoking

(38:46):
.
But I love music.
I like music does things to meRight.
So it was always the dancingpart that I used to gravitate
towards and that was about myparty life.
I'd go out dancing and therewould be once a week,
sporadically, here and there,but not necessarily every single

(39:08):
year, and I'd say university iswhere I learned to
procrastinate.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Oh, okay, that's another discussion, because I
think we have ever had this liketwice since I knew Right Once.
It was lengthy discussion and Ithink most people struggling
this, but also smart people, thegreatest of proximate
procrastinators procrastinatorsterrible yeah so Did you really

(39:39):
get Maximum out of MalaysiaUniversity?

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Man, I'd say I could have gotten more out of it.
You know why?
Even procrastination, where itstarted, was the moment we had
an assignment.
I'd do it immediately, like wehad a deadline three weeks,
three weeks away, I'd be done.
I'd do it immediately.
Like we had a deadline threeweeks away, I'd be done.
I'd be done now, right.

(40:06):
And then I came to figure outthat I could do an assignment in
a day, or in like an assignmentthat other people would spend
two weeks on.
I could do it in like eighthours.
And so I'm like, okay, let'sjust wait for the last minute.
And hence the procrastinationcame.
And so I'm like, okay, let'sjust wait for the last minute.
And hence the procrastinationcame.
And then I'm also going toblame my procrastination on

(40:26):
viruses, because I rememberthere's a time I did all my
assignments on my laptop andthen it crashed and I had to do
them all over again.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh, you mean the computer viruses?

Speaker 3 (40:35):
The computer viruses, yes, and my laptop crashed and
I had to do them all over again.
I did assignments that I did intwo weeks in one day, and so in
my mind I'm like, okay, I canactually do this in a day so I'm
like so why did I spend twoweeks?
So of course, my mind silly me.
I went to oh, I can do this ina day.
So every time I had assignment,I'm like well, I'll just wait

(40:56):
you wait for what?
For that one day.
It's a a terrible terrible,terrible.
But, all in all, you asked aboutthe university experience.
I think it was beautifulexposure.
It was beautiful exposure tosee how much some universities
put into the courses that theyexpose students to.

(41:19):
So when you're learning so, forexample, marketing like I'd say
, one course in marketing you'dfind that the professor is
actually an expert.
They've worked at an agency orthey own an agency, so they're
giving you real life examples.
Of course, like I said, contextwas quite varied, but I

(41:39):
appreciate that.
Or you'd find that you know alecturer teaching you.
You know advanced science ofhuman behavior, so we had such
courses.
If you're learningcommunications, you have to
learn human behavior, andthey're actually an expert in
the field.
You know they publish works inthe field and it's not theory.
Yeah, that's a that's that's apractical experience practical

(42:02):
experience.
I came to really appreciate that, the fact that people who are
in front of students teachingmust have practical experience.
That way, when the kalila in inhigh school gets to ask you a
question and you're not surewhat it is, you can still
respond and you're notintimidated by questions that
are coming from left, right andcenter, because you just have

(42:22):
this real life experience toback up your theory.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
That's a nice way of looking at it and also, given
your previous experience, atleast for sure you got a
different perspective ineducation right, and did you get
any receipt, or did yougraduate just on time?

Speaker 3 (42:48):
So I graduated with a child.
I'm going to say that.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
From Malaysia.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Not from Malaysia, tanzanian, but I had my child
when I was in my last year ofuni, but I graduated on time.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Okay, okay, that's not, but I graduated on time.
Okay, okay, that's not bad,graduated on time.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
I remember the professors were like, oh, you
have to stop.
Now You're expecting, you can'tgo to class.
I'm like, hey, watch me, me, Ihave been brought up to study, I
shall study.
So, michael, literally I usedto, I used to, I used to push my
, my child, my son he's now 14 Iused to push his pram Into the

(43:26):
class and I used to carry him Inthe classes.
So, nkwena, I'd bebeleze him,so I'd sit and literally cradle
him In the back of the class andI'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.

(43:50):
That does not equal to two.
The way I respond to this.
It was terribly difficult, butI made sure I finished and I
finished well.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that part I didn't know about it
.
Now that I know about it, Ithink I see also something else
about you that I didn't knowwhere that drive comes from, now
I see.
So you graduate now.
Do you come back straight hereor do you find opportunities as
well?

Speaker 3 (44:18):
so the story is a little bit.
The story is Michael you'regetting.
Story is Michael, you'regetting into every you know,
with this podcast, people justask really high-level questions
and I give them high-levelanswers.
I feel like you're digging.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah, the thing is, you see, high-level questions
have a problem.
Those are the people.
So the thing here and I wantyou to understand me here you're
free.
If you're not comfortableanswering the question, we can
just skip it.
No, I don't mind answering it,but the thing is the thing is,
I've seen so many, I've watchedso many people, so many people

(44:52):
high level, you know, mediumlevel, whatever level, but I
tend not to put one and onetogether.
But for your story or for anyimpact masters or Africa's
Talking Retail stories, you getto understand the whole context
To some extent.
You might listen to that storyand understand why actually
those people think that way,made that decision, and you'll

(45:14):
get to the impacts that you'vecreated and you'll see and
anyone who is listening will seehow actually most of these
drove you to building these Nice.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
So don't worry about.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
No, I'm not.
I'm just like you're the firstperson to ask me these questions
, and so I'm like, oh okay, herewe go yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
But for sure, even for me, I'm learning a lot from
you.
Though we have ever had severalconversations that are really
deeper than these, I'm stillalso now getting some other
context of like oh, this is it.
This actually contributes towhat KELS is right now.
Yeah, so did you just come backhere to die or did you go
elsewhere?

Speaker 3 (45:51):
You did not forget your question, did you?
Do I?

Speaker 2 (45:54):
need to.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
So I was to graduate in 2010, in May of 2010.
But that year I had to comeback home.
So my final course was in.
I finished in March of 2010.
But something happened in ourhome Again, single parent home,

(46:18):
my mom.
Something happened, so shedisappeared and I had to come
back home and take care of thefamily.
So I had to go from uni tobreadwinner and so I had to cut
short.
So I started with a diploma inadvanced mass communication and
then I got a scholarship tofinalize a degree.
I couldn't finish the degreebecause I had to come back home

(46:40):
to take care of the family, andso I came back home in September
of 2010.
And the reason I never, I couldnever.
I did not attend my graduation.
I couldn't afford it.
I couldn't afford it.
I had a debt, I'm sure, becauseI was paying some of my tuition
fees, paying as I ran along,and so my mom disappeared.

(47:02):
I had to come back home.
Coming back home, I thought I'dbe here for three months and
then I would get to go back touni and go on with my dreams.
No, listen, you try to tellyour dreams, your dreams.
Put them in a box, cover themNice board, find shelves, the

(47:23):
back of the shelf, put it there,cover, do not look.
That was the situation.
So I had to completely forgetwhat I wanted to do and come
here and take on theresponsibility of taking care of
the family.
So I had a brother, a youngsister, who was also going
through high school at that time.
She went to ISD and, for thosewho will listen to high studies

(47:45):
and a very expensive it's mostexpensive school in t-set but we
had a, we had an arrangementthat had that, so most of the
fees are taken care of by herfather.
At the time we share it.
We shared a mom and he and andand they.
The school itself had a.
They had an arrangement thatwould take care of some of these

(48:09):
fees and so we're taking careof kind of like the
transportation fees, books andbasically upkeep, which will in
itself was not small.
Exam fees were not small.
For those who have ever appliedto college in the United States
, you know every singleuniversity.
The application fee is notsmall.
It's not small.
So it was things like that.

(48:31):
I had to come back to find ahouse to move my family to,
because the place that my momused to rent we had to move.
There was just drama.
You know you come back, guy.
There was drama.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
At home.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Guys, there was drama .

Speaker 2 (48:46):
So your mom did not just disappear, because I feel
like there's a movie here.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
I'm getting like a moment a tube, like we should do
it.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
I used to be a playwright, so we can combine
your writing skill with myplaywright skill.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Absolutely so.
Yeah, so I came back.
My mom did.
There were suspiciouscircumstances, but not saying
more into that, but it was.
I was what?
22, one-ish, two-ish, butcoming into a space where
suddenly you have to take on allthe responsibilities of a home,

(49:24):
it's a lot.
And nobody's asking you aboutwhat you need, where you are,
what your dreams are, what youwant to do.
Basically, you are nothing.
Everybody else matters.
Nobody's asking you about howyou are and I remember moving
into a space of deep, deepdepression.
But you can't show anybodydepression, you're just supposed

(49:47):
to move.
I was suicidal.
I was suicidal Completely, butthe thing that took me through
was faith, faith in God.
I cannot.
It was God and nothing else.
You know I have stories fordays.
This podcast is not long enoughfor us to go through everything

(50:09):
, but I'm grateful for thatseason.
We went from house to house.
We knew homelessness, guys,homelessness.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
How many are you in your family?

Speaker 3 (50:18):
So I've got a young sister, I've got an older
brother.
Homelessness how many are youin your family?
So I've got a young sister,I've got an older brother, um,
and then, but then in the housethere was also a lady who who,
um, my mom was taking care ofwith her two children.
They were also there, um, andso when we moved, I, I moved in,
I moved with all of them andremember there was my son as
well, um, he was one insomething at this month, at this
time, and so we moved to adifferent house.

(50:40):
In that I just going to gothrough a string of events in
that time.
So there was having to move fromone house to the other, there
was being chased away from thatone other house that we moved
into because the landlord didnot love the fact that I
couldn't afford expensivefurniture and I bought
mattresses and put them on thefloor because the family needs
somewhere to sleep.

(51:01):
So I could not afford, like thebeautiful, there's luxury, and
then there's what there was,that level like medium, and then
there's the level at the bottomthere, but I'm like people can
sleep, that's what I could do atthe time, right, and then we
got chased out of that housebecause he didn't like the way

(51:22):
we were living.
And then and then I foundanother house that was a little
bit, that was affordable, but itwas 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.
So the night when I have to move, the evening that I have to

(51:42):
move my family from one house tothe other, you come to find out
that there's no the other,there's no house.
And then, in this house thatwe're supposed to move from, the
landlady, who was a churchdeacon, found people to come
into the house and throw ourthings out, threw things out,

(52:02):
and she was saying oh, I'm goingto publish you in the papers,
I'm going to literally leave myhouse.
You poor, poor girl.
I don't want poor people livingin my house Seriously.
Seriously and so, thank God,there's a friend of mine who had
another friend who lived inSinza, so they had, like a house

(52:27):
, like you know, 50k houses,which is about what like $20 a
month and so, and then thatother friend, our mutual friend,
had traveled, so his house wasvacant for about three months.
So I got to move the dada andher two sons and my son there
and myself I had to ask mybrother to find ways to take
care of himself my young sister.

(52:48):
I moved her to my aunt's house.
I had to ask my aunt, my mom'syoung sister, to take care of
her.
And then, um, another friend ofours, his mom's house had an
empty room so we moved all thefurniture there and so we went
to this place in Sinza and justwe had like clothes in our
suitcase and we had to startthere and it was, I don't know

(53:09):
how.
I was not depressed, it waschaos, and then, moving from
that, eventually managed to getsome money together, moved from
that house in Sinza to a housein miko cheney, yeah, moved the
family there again, we weresleeping on the floor still, but
this guy didn't care, which guythink the new landlord.
So this is another house movedthere, um, and then in this new

(53:33):
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 drivinginto the driveway and she was on
her phone.
So she hits my son.
So she hits him on the rightside and then he falls on his

(53:58):
left he's just learning to walk.
So he's about a year and a fewmonths he falls on his left.
He's just learning to walk.
So he's about a year and a fewmonths he falls on his left side
.
And then she doesn't realizethat she's hit him, so she
grazes him what, she moves himalong on the.
It's like cobalt bricks to fiton the driveway.
And so what ended up happening?
I remember I was at home thatafternoon.

(54:20):
Then I had gone to choirpractice or brand practice,
because I used to serve in thechoir in my former church and I
got called up.
So the dad was calling me whereare you?
Come back home.
And I said, listen, you nevercall me this way.
What happened?
And she said just come backhome.
I'm like what happened?
Just come back home.
I'm like, okay, did somebodycause we were on the first floor

(54:40):
?
Did somebody fall from thefirst floor?
No, is the house on fire?
No, is somebody dead?
No, I'm like okay, whathappened?
Somebody knocked Pharrell.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
That's my son's name.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Firstborn's name.
Where are you?
We're going to, we're TMJ.
Tmj is a hospital, it's ahospital not very far from here,
rushed to the hospital.
Now my son, literally theentire left side of his face was
gone, paralyzed Skin, so it wasgrazed on the cobble brick
driveway.

(55:12):
There was no hair, literallyhis skin was scraped off.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
That was bad.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
You guy.
I was, and of course everybodyis like hold yourself, be strong
, listen, I was just fromchiropractic, but the words that
came out of my mouth were notholy.
I'm like shut up, do not tellme to come down, look at what
you've done.
And so, even as I'm walkinginto the hospital, by the way,

(55:40):
there's literally blood drippingand my son, the moment he sees
me, he reaches out his hand andhe's crying.
And they've got this massivegauze on his left side of his
face.
They've injected him withdifferent 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, wecame to find out that he had a

(56:02):
fractured liver, he had bruisedribs and he had a fractured left
shoulder.
We found out two days laterbecause the hospital nothing on
the hospital, but the hospitalsand it was not just one we had
visited at the time.
My neighbor at the time did notwant the one who hit him, by the
way, did not want to invest.
She said she was not going topay for expensive hospitals.

(56:26):
The only hospital with a CTscan, working CT scan at that
moment was at Gakhan Hospital.
And I said eventually, aftertaking my son back and forth to
the hospital so many times, onlyto be told by nurses that I was
too anxious as a mom, that Iwas looking too much into it.
And I can say this in Swahiliit's like so, moms of Nade,

(56:52):
you're too anxious, you don'tknow how to take care of
children, you don't know how tonurture your children.
You're panicking for nothing.
Your child is fine.
The child has a temperature of40 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 thehospitals there's something
wrong, only to be laughed at andto be chased that is agakan

(57:14):
this is not agakan.
This was uh, another twohospitals.
I won't even go into it.
But eventually I um one of theevenings, so a night after he
had the accident, um, he wasdoing terribly and my son is
whimpering on the bed and he'sjust saying mommy, mommy.
And I'm like this is enough.

(57:34):
And I and I went I I think thiswas the third, the fifth
hospital visit I'd done at that.
In the fourth I'd been laughedat by nurses.
I'd watched nurses scrape myson's skin off his face, saying
that, oh, because you know, whenthey put medicine the pass
builds up.
And what they said?
They were removing the pass.

(57:55):
They were saying if they don'tremove it, it's going to cause
the wound to get infected.
They had not given him ananesthetic at all.
There was no painkiller.
They would scrape it off.
And what one of the nurses toldme is if he's not crying, if we
don't hear him cry, we won'tknow if it's working.
They were holding him downdoing this.

(58:16):
No adult would agree to thisnonsense.
No adult would agree to thisnonsense.
And every time I kept holdingthem I'm like don't do it, give
him something.
And again they would laugh andthey would talk amongst
themselves.
Mothers of nowadays, oh, youhave no backbone.
And they were telling storiesabout their good old times,

(58:37):
right, anyway?
So eventually I go downstairsand I knock on this lady's.
This is at night, it's aroundmidnight and I knock.
I'm like there's somethingwrong with this boy.
I'm going back to the hospital.
So I go back to the samehospital that I was in, where I
was laughed at in that in theafternoon, luckily, I find
another doctor.
Now this doctor, he tells me,he tells me mama, I have no idea

(58:58):
what's wrong with your child.
Nobody knows what's wrong withyour child.
You'll have to face it yourself.
As much as people sometimeswant to say, it's a cruel
response.
I was grateful Because for thefirst time, somebody was honest.
Somebody was honest.
And I asked him point blank I'mlike, give me a referral, I

(59:18):
need a CT scan.
Where do we go?
He told me point blank the onlyhospital that has a working ct
scan right now is aga khan, Isaid give me a referral.
He's like I'm gonna write yourreferral, I'm gonna call
somebody and make sure you gothere.
I was grateful.
Yeah, he literally told me Ihave no idea what I'm going to
give you medicine, just go.
And I remember actually ct scanat that time was what 700k, so

(59:40):
that's about um 300 dollars.
Yeah, 350 or something.
yes, and he had to do quite afew right and and, and I, I
remember calling this lady andsaying, hey, I have to go to aga
khan.
And she said, no, if you'retaking him to aga khan, I cannot
foot any of the bills, as ifshe was footing the bills at
this point anyway, and I said myson is ill, he's about to pass.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Do you?
I hang up.
I'm like I will do everythingin 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 needto sell to make sure my son is
fine.
Got into Aga Khan emergencyAgain.
That, between 2 am when we werethere, and 9 am, is when they

(01:00:26):
found out all these things thathe had a fracture, bruised ribs,
the fractured shoulder, and hisliver had fractured as well.
Did he fractured, punctured?
Yeah, he was a punctured liverand so he had a lot of internal
bleeding.
And do you know the hospitalsbefore that's what they had done

(01:00:48):
whenever he was vomiting blood.
They gave him medicine to stophim from vomiting.
They did not try to find outwhy.
What?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
a minute.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
His son is alive right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
He's alive.
He was in ICU for two and ahalf weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
And all this time he was given this medication to
stop him vomiting.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
So he was in ICU when we got to Aga Khan is when they
put him into ICU, so thisentire time he was actually
terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
How long was that?

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
In Aga Khan.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
No, in the other hospital.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
So he was not actually admitted in the other
hospital.
They treated him as anoutpatient he was in and out to
take him.
So, yeah, so I kept going backto the hospital and telling them
that there's something wrong,there's something wrong, whereas
the doctors and nurses alikekept telling me that the child
is fine and I was makingsomething out of nothing and I
was being too dramatic and, ofof course, they're being laughed
at.
I was in that one day I was inthe hospital several times

(01:01:44):
saying there's something wrong,until that evening when I went
back to the hospital and saidthis is ridiculous, there's
something wrong here.
And I kept, and my wholeintention of going back to that
hospital that evening was sayinggive me his papers.
I need to go to a differenthospital because you guys are
not telling me anythingmeaningful, right?
And so, of course, in gettingthe papers is where the doctor
told me that, okay, we don'tknow, none of this makes sense.

(01:02:05):
He was going through the filelike this doesn't make sense to
take into a different hall.
He needs a ct scan.
And the only place you can geta ct scan is this hospital,
which is where I ended up goingto, at the can, where even the,
the, the, the doctors in theemergency unit were shocked at
how is this?

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
How did he survive?

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Yes, how is this boy?

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
not in ICU.
I was shocked like how did hesurvive?

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
God.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Because internal bleeding takes not more than 48
hours for you to be out.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Michael, I don't even know what to tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
But eventually it got well.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Eventually it got well Again.
Icu two and a half weeks.
I am very grateful to my churchat the time.
They came up and they took careof their bills.
That hospital was full ofvisitors.
Full of visitors.
There's a point where they saidhe needed blood.
Do you know, I have O positive.
I didn't give a drop.
By the time I found out AgaKhan's blood bank was full.

(01:02:56):
Friends and family they filled,Literally even before they were
told my son's blood group.
They literally said we're justgoing to give blood.
Whatever blood group is needed,you will find it there, you
know, and I'm so grateful tothat and kills.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
This begs me to ask the question when did you start
getting seriously involved withchurch, you know, in spiritual
world, because I know you arequite spiritual and I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
I'd say okay, so I'm going to say that.
So my so, st Mary's, the schoolI went to.
So we used to have fellowshipbut I wasn't necessarily very
involved in fellowship.
My roommates shout out to AliceLushiku, ana Mwasha, ana
Lushika.
We used to have fellowship butI wasn't necessarily very
involved in fellowship.
My roommates shout out to AliceLushiku, ana Mwasha, ana
Lushiku.
I literally have to give him ashout out.

(01:03:47):
They used to Lillian Madeja,woohoo, they used to go to
fellowship and I used to.
I used to kind of just tag along.
I thought I was payingattention, tag along because I
was not raised a Christian, yeah, and I'd tag along, but then
I'd say those curiosity wasplanted and then after I was
done with school I started goingto I call it these conferences,

(01:04:09):
right?
Makasege.
Shout out to Makasege, startedgoing out to Makasege and I used
to remember I used to go with afriend of mine called Pamela
I'm shout out to Pam likeshouting out to everybody and I
have my aunt, aunt Wainey orManny, who was my mom's older
sister, who used to push me toattend and I used to eventually,
and for me it was the curiositythat was planted and I

(01:04:34):
appreciated the fact that insome of these spaces I could ask
questions and not be ridiculedfor the questions I was asking
and I had a lot of questions alot guy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
And and have you do getting answers to the questions
.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Was, was, very was was a breath of fresh air.
And when I was in Malaysiaagain, um, I went to a church.
You have a church in Malaysiaand Kuala Lumpur city have a
school and I, um, at that churchthere was a dance ministry guy
and remember, remember, the onlyreason I used to go clapping

(01:05:09):
was because I love to dance Notthat I love the atmosphere,
terrible.
But then here we are in achurch and there are people
breaking it down.
You know they were professional.
It's not this, oh, we're justchoir kumbaya.
No, it was professional,boogieing before God.

(01:05:30):
The choreography was top notch.
You're gonna see it in ChrisBrown video.
People were serious with thisministry and that got me planted
yeah, right, got me planted andas well as a choir where you
could literally pray, likeministry was no joke.

(01:05:50):
You don't just come here andjust do your your small sidestep
.
No, if you can boogie in theseplatforms, you are gonna boogie
before god and so and so we usedto run whole productions.
They were top notch.
So, coming from Malaysia intoTZ, I was also planted in a.

(01:06:10):
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 andI was completely transformed.
No, it was a once-off event andI was completely transformed.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
And here, with your son, you truly saw the essence
of community, the essence ofbeing in charge and the essence
of God being on your side.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
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 thescans, so they had to send them,
to email them, to India to getthem read in India, and then the
doctors in India would respond.
It's ridiculous, but anyway.

(01:06:54):
But I remember the one who wasdoing it.
He said Mama, we don't know howto help you In this case.
You just need to pray, becauseit's dire.
Yeah, but again I saw God showout and show off in that boy.
Because I'd gotten to a point,Michael, where I literally
couldn't pray.

(01:07:14):
All I could do was kneel andcry.
That's all I'm like.
Kneel and cry.
That was it so good listening?

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
to your heart is true .
He lost.
Cry, that's all I'm like.
Kneel and cry, that was it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Because he lost a lot of blood.
The fact that when you see myson now, he only has a tiny scar
above his left eye.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
He recovered altogether.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
It is ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
You cannot even believe it.
You can't see, because you sawthe other side.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
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'teven tell that he lost hair on
the left side of his face.
You can't tell that his ear hadno skin.
You can't tell yeah, it'ssomething else.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Yeah, that's amazing.
At least something good out ofit.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Something good out of it.
Something good out of it.
So, kelsey, fast forward.
Where do you go to fromsleeping on the ground?

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Where do I go from sleeping?
The way you connected those twothings.
Okay.
So really really quickly.
Can I just move really quicklyhere yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
because I see a lot of things good things that
happen and you really quickly.
Can I just move really quicklyhere?
Yeah, because I see a lot ofthings good things that happen
and you move quickly.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
All right, okay, all right.
So from here at this point, Iworked with.
When I came back from Malaysia,by the way, I worked with an
advertising agency called it wascalled the Agency at that time
and we did a lot of socialmarketing.
Then I moved on to working withanother agency called Footprint
, and then I quit working withboth agencies.

(01:08:45):
At the time, I had no plan.
I had a grand idea that I wasgoing to serve in ministry and,
you know, do great work for theLord, and I was.
I had no plan.
It was a terrible idea.
It was a terrible idea.
I had no plan.
Long story short, it did notend well.
Ended up working with lost ourhouse.
Ended up working fast forward.

(01:09:06):
Worked with Airtel.
So, I joined Airtel as what wasI doing?

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Brand and creative.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
Yes, I was in the marketing department.
I don't remember exactly whatmy title was, but I was in
charge of.
Eventually the title got movedto brand assets and something
Team lead.
Executive.
Yeah, I was a team lead insomething, so I was working with
the agency to make sure thecreatives were done in time,
briefing them, making sure thatbasically everything everybody

(01:09:37):
saw was done well, working tocome up with the agencies to
develop strategies etc.
But at the end of the day, um,I left airtel.
Um, again.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
I always had, again I always had this strong desire
to create something impactfuland I think that's where we met
actually, because now in between, that process is when we met.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
Yeah actually, but then this was from the very
beginning, and this is also amajor reason why I left the
agency, all these places that Iused to work.
I used to have a very fierydesire to do something impactful
and I'd be in these places andtry to find a way to do that.
Well, there's that.
That's one of the reasons Ileft, other than the fact that

(01:10:25):
in one of those spaces I did Idid there was a little bit of
abuse.
There's no such thing as alittle bit of abuse.
There was abuse and this I'mgoing to mention this actually
at the service of any womanlistening to this podcast with
the fact that if you are in aspace and you find there's no
such thing as a little abuse, ifyou find any type of situation

(01:10:47):
that makes you uncomfortable, ifyou find any red light, make
sure you speak out on it.
If the people in thatorganization or company will not
speak to you or will not speakfor you, find others who will.
There is no way that you shouldquiet yourself simply because
you are in an environment thatyou fear one.

(01:11:09):
You fear losing your work, youfear losing friendships and, you
see, I remember getting to apoint where I was scared of
going to work in the eveningbecause somebody would be there
and that somebody was a adirector, and so there are
things that you can't say toquote-unquote director.
Even though I used to like don't, don't, I don't do that.
Don't hug me too close.

(01:11:29):
Don't hug me too close becauseI'm like grandma hug on on,
don't, don't.
And where you hug a person andthey pull you in, and I want to
say these things very franklybecause don't, when you hug a
person and they pull you in.
And I want to say these thingsvery frankly because we don't
address them.
And I want to say them as aswell, because every single time
that I try to address it withwomen even very successful women
people keep it quiet and theywould rather not share the

(01:11:52):
stories.
It is pertinent that we doshare the stories.
Don't hug me too close, don'tpull me closer.
When you're speaking to me andgiving me a brief, you do not
have to be this close to my facewhere I can feel your breath.
There's no reason for thatwhatsoever.
And the moment a workspace.
So in my experience, where I'dgo to a fellow director and

(01:12:17):
explain that, hey, this personis talking to me inappropriately
, they're touching meinappropriately.
I don't like how they'relooking at me.
I feel completely unsafe inthis space.
Now, when you have the fellowdirector also being male and
unable to connect with yourcontext, trust me, unless it's a
he-for-she kind of anenvironment where people make

(01:12:40):
intentional moves to put inpolicies to protect female
employees, your case will not belistened to.
So we need to have even thoughthe space does not have these
every people working inworkspaces.
There's no workspace thatshould not have policies that
protect women and men alike.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
And I'm just going to leave it there, but I have to
ask a controversial question.
Go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
So can also other women make the space unsafe for
other women, a hundred percentFor men, for other men, other
women and men.
I'll deal with that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Because the HR, as you know, it doesn't really have
that and with the world we areliving, in that is as real as we
are talking here, and with theworld we are living in.
That is as real as we aretalking here.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
So with the policies, for example, that I'm talking
about.
So the policy many companieshave policies that are, that are
confined to that workenvironment.
But a policy on paper, a policynot actioned, leads to nothing.

(01:13:44):
But the policy also has to tellyou that if there is a case, a
safeguarding case, and it's nottaken care of, what are the
other organs outside thiscompany that I can connect to?
Because every company, everyorganization, must be liable to

(01:14:05):
another entity that's not itself, especially on the matters of
safeguarding.
So if it's in Tanzania, forexample, we have Ate, which is
association of of Tanzanianemployees and employers.
So you have to be connected.
So if you're, if you're, ifyou're going to a space and
you're looking for work and youknow that company is not a
member of ate, maybe it's astartup and of course, for

(01:14:27):
startups is a completelydifferent story, but we can
still champion these things,right.
So so then?
So then, bring it up, championit.
Hey, let's do one, two, threeto not just protect the women,
but to protect the men, not justfrom men, but also from women,
women.
It's just that in my case, Ifound a lot of abuse with men,
but also with women.
I'm going to give an example,just one, and we can move.

(01:14:49):
But there was a campaign that wewere doing for an international
NGO that also has offices inTanzania and I was at the table
finalizing a pitch with membersof that organization and I
remember very clearly, again,these things.
You don't forget A person fromthis organization.
They asked me okay, yes, you'regoing to get the deal, but what

(01:15:10):
is in it for me?
And listen, I was so naive,michael.
I was so naive.
I was like that's a greatquestion.
Thank you so much for thatquestion.
You get an incredible campaign.
We're going to be able toimpact people in one, two, three
ways.
I was so excited and the womansitting next to him said don't
be naive, what time can you showup to his hotel room?

(01:15:32):
It was very point blank.
I was caught off guard.
I remember looking left andright at the people I was on the
table, at that table withthinking help.
They both one faced that side,the other side of the, the other
faced that side.
So it's basically you're in itand so, and so I was so stunned

(01:15:52):
that the gentleman himself hadto pretend he was joking.
But there was no joke there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
It was serious.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
There was no joke there.
Later on, one of of my One ofmy partners that we were doing,
we had, we had created a concertHim with, he tells me Kels,
we're going to lose that Becauseof you.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
That's crazy, but I'm not surprised.
I've heard these stories Fordays and I think it's not fair.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
It was an organization championing gender
issues.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
Yeah yeah, maybe you have an idea, but Don't have an
idea.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
Please don't scrap that have no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
So Kels, you quit your job at a very, I would say,
prime career to just startimpact innovation.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Yeah, because I didn't feel like I could do that
there.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
And this actually is a culmination of this kind of
vastness and how the corporateworks 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 (01:17:06):
There's something more.
There's something more.
You know one of the things theway corporate organs work, the
bottom line is the profit.
Yeah, right, and I always amlike okay, so how can we make
this better for the people?
I'm like, yes, I love likelisten, I'm all for profit, so
how can we make it better forthe people?
I'm like, yes, I love likelisten, I'm all for profit, but
how can we make it better forthe people?
I'm like, listen, this dealcould be, but then, of course,
you're in the creativedepartment.

(01:17:27):
That is not your job, right?
Your job is to take theinnovations and find a way to
sell them, right.
So sometimes I'd be withdifferent team leads and I'd ask
questions and it was so likethat's not your pay grade.
It's above your pay grade.
It is not your area, you know,but I felt that we could be

(01:17:50):
doing so much more, and even inthe different spaces that I
worked with before, it wasalways that we could do so much
more, and the things that I'mdoing right now.
By the way, one of the thingsthat I have to say is I didn't
go out and say, oh, I want to dothis thing myself.
I always was so.
For example, I work within thecreative economy, the creative
industry, even the tech forgender work that we do right now

(01:18:11):
.
Listen, everything that I do isconnected to an experience that
I had, an experience that Ifigured is not an experience
that only I had.
It's experiences that differentpeople in the different spaces
that I have had the privilege ofexisting different challenges

(01:18:31):
people have had.
And so, as we're trying tosolve them, how can we solve
them at scale?
But at the same time, it waslooking at okay, do this other
people doing something alongthese lines?
Can we do it together?
And I found out very early onthat not everybody wants, wants
to collaborate.
Collaboration is something thatwe all talk about, but not
everybody has has the mentalfortitude, yeah, to connect in

(01:18:56):
that way yeah, so you startunleashed.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
That's the point where you start unleashed yeah,
so I.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
So I started Unleashed Africa Social Ventures
in 2000.
Actually, I tried to start itin 2015, but finally registered
it in 2016.
So again, that's kind of wherewe met.
Yeah, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
Now I have the right questions.
How did you come to Nairobi?

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
It's been a long-winded intro.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
Now we know you, Kels , and it's a good thing.
How would we know all thesethings without that intro?
So, Kels, you come to Nairobithrough Unleashed, of course,
but for a program that was runby Impact Up right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
Yeah, partly Impact Up, partly Impact Up Network
Africa yes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
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 (01:19:56):
It doesn't still run, but okay.
So again, from the verybeginning, when I had ideas, I
used to try to haveconversations with people.
Same thing where you're tryingto have a conversation with
people, especially guys.
If you have an idea, don't tellfamily.
I'm just going to say Peoplestill operate on that.
They are the first people todestroy, especially if they
think they know you.

(01:20:16):
If they think they know you andthey cannot think outside the
box, the walls they have builtfor you to exist in, it will be
very tough for them to give youany constructive feedback
Because, listen, I'm starting toperspire.
I'm getting traumaticflashbacks.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Cool down, cool down, cool down.
Maybe that gave you a differentperspective about innovation.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
See.
So again, from the verybeginning I was very much drawn
to wanting to converse.
So, for example, the creativeindustry, 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 gointo the one, two, three later,
but we can do.
And then it's kind of likeMichael, when you come and tell
me Kels, kels, I think we cancreate ABC to solve one, two,

(01:21:12):
three in this way, and this iskind of how we can create a
model around it.
And then I'm like, ok, yeah,michael, that's nice, that's
nice.
Do you want to watch this showwhen I'm completely going to
gloss over everything you'vejust said?
And I had so many of thoseinstances where or when you'd
say all this and then I'd say,yeah, michael, yeah, but then

(01:21:35):
you're just, you're just a one,you know, you're just an A.
You leave this to the otherpeople.
Why?
Why do you want to?
Or I heard this so many timesYou'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 awell-meaning uncle.

(01:21:56):
Just give me an example of awell-meaning uncle.
You know, in Africa everybody'san uncle, eh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
Yeah, everyone is an uncle, everyone is an auntie.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
Yeah, so this is not that, anybody connected to my
family, but yes, but he keptgiving me examples of how of
different women who went aftertheir dreams and their families
died and flopped, and how theirchildren became addicts and DTC.
Those are the examples I usedto get.
So you're a mother, you shouldfocus on being a mom.
I remember I also had a pastorat a time and he used to drive

(01:22:28):
that in that you're not going tobe a good parent.
You can't be a good parent anddo all this.
And I believed them.
To a certain degree I believedthem.
However, there was still thatburning within me to do
something.
You know, when God putssomething inside you, it shall
burn you alive, because everysingle time I'd have an idea and

(01:22:51):
something else would build ontop of it, build on top of it,
and then somebody will come witha challenge that I would
actually respond to with thatidea, even though I've not
started it, and you'd gettestimonials even before you've
started anything.
And so eventually I said youknow what?
I'm just going to go for it.
And the first program actuallythat I got connected to was YALI
, but I did the East AfricanRegional Leadership Program in

(01:23:16):
Nairobi at.
Kenyatta University.
That was life changing for me.
Why?
Being in a space where you haveyoung dreamers for Africa all
sharing what other people wouldthink are crazy ideas, and
everybody believes it's possible?

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
And building it.
That.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
For me, it was just the fact that people believed
it's possible that every singletime I said and shared somebody
something, nobody laughed at me,nobody told me it was
impossible.
Nobody told me you're not now amother.
I did not have objections, butpeople were saying, oh, and then
you should also meet thisperson, you should all.
Oh, you could.
Oh, look at this example thatcompletely opened a different
door for me, because it told meyou're sane, sane this entire

(01:24:07):
time into Canine.
I was doubting myself.
I was thinking I am nuts, I amcrazy, I am a menace to society,
because these are things I wasmade to believe.
But I got into a space wherenow I'm like okay, I'm not crazy
.
I'm not a menace to society.
There are other people, there'ssome even crazier than me, so
thank God Right.
People.
There's some even crazier thanme, so thank god right.
I learned the term socialentrepreneurship there.

(01:24:28):
Yeah, into the program that wedid, um, um, the one that I met
you in with, you know, partly,partly organized by impact
africa um, and perhaps um thatwas now even after this yali
program came back to tz andtried to figure out okay, so, so
because one of the things aboutthese programs and, by the way,
we need to do these programsbetter there's a lot of hype.

(01:24:50):
There's a lot of hype, right,but most of the times that hype
dies down when the rubber hitsthe road.
You come back home and then yourealize that, oh, this looked
really good on paper.
It doesn't work well in reallife, you know, it doesn't work

(01:25:12):
well at all.
So I'm like these programs,even in terms of some of the
work that we're doing withUnleashed and some of the such
programs that we run, I'm likeyou learn as you are
implementing.
So implement, learn on groundright, and that's the only way
it's practical.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
So, at the program and make all the mistakes.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
A hundred percent, and so the program that I met
you in it was really I wastrying to understand business
models.
I was trying to.
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 meunderstand the different models
and it helped me understand howto organize the thoughts that I

(01:25:52):
had.
But then again, I still couldnot make the jigsaws fit
together.
I had to go on ground and startpracticing, and so we launched
Unleashed Africa that year 2016.
We launched in August and welaunched with Unleashed Academy
that year 2016.
We launched in August and welaunched with Unleashed Academy
for Creative Arts and Leadership.
We launched, and so just can Isay a little bit about Unleashed

(01:26:13):
Africa?
So, unleashed Africa right now,after organizing.
Unleashed Africa.
It's always been Unleashed, soUnleashed.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
Africa.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Yes, so Unleashed Africa Social Ventures.
It's a group of startups, butthen on one end we have
Unleashed Africa Social Ventures.
It's a group of startups, butthen on one end we have
Unleashed Academy for CreativeArts and Leadership.
So it's a group of socialenterprises and within it are
startups.
So Unleashed Africa SocialVentures working at the
intersection of youthdevelopment, social innovation,
job creation, and we do thatwithin the creative economy.

(01:26:44):
So creative industry, tech forgender.
And then there's the socialenterprise, ecosystem
development or social enterprisedevelopment, and so with
Unleashed Academy for CreativeArts 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 genderwork that we do.
I had a lot of questions whyare the rising numbers of

(01:27:06):
teenage pregnancies?
Why do we still have?
Why are they peaking every year?
Why do we have issues to accessaround access to opportunities
for women?
So I had a lot of whys and so Iwent in just asking questions
and that's literally.
I told you that we're launchingour product Rise Up on the 13th
of December.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
The product is known as Rise Up, rise Up on the 13th
of December.
The product is known as Rise Up, rise.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
Up.
Yeah, okay, it started withquestions and for me, I was like
I'm going to ask thesequestions for as long as it
needs and I'm not just going todo an initiative or an
intervention.
I want to see.
I'm like, once I have an answerto 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 wetruly solve this problem at
scale.
And the biggest thing for mewas how can we use and of course

(01:27:47):
this came later how can we usetech to do it?
Yeah, because looking at thefact that tech was really
picking up, he's really pickingup.
But how can we do that?
And so we, we tested some ofthe first hypotheses, some of
the first questions we had on onwhatsapp.
You know, people like, oh no,create a website, great, I'm
like no, I'm not creatinganything.
Low, low fire, low fidelitytechnology, whatsapp we

(01:28:10):
literally use WhatsApp and a lotof people would be like, oh,
it's very primitive.
I'm like we're going to startwith primitive.
Yeah, to get the real timefeedback Right but primitive
allowed us to build a theory ofchange that has gotten rise up
to where it's going to be.
It's Africa's first digitalsafe space for girls, and I'm
excited to talk about it perhapslater, but yeah, so Unleashed

(01:28:31):
Africa we launched in 2016.
Since then, I've hadexperiences organizing it,
trying to figure out what do youlaunch first, what do we
prioritize?
And from the very beginning,michael I just have to mention
this, I know you're going to askanother question but from the
very beginning, it was veryimportant for me to figure out

(01:28:52):
how the different ideas that wehad could generate revenue that
could grow them.
So it was.
I had those questions aroundWisdom Wisdom, so the ideas
themselves, so the initiatives,so get grant funding.
I'm like, oh, get Wisdom, sothe ideas themselves, so the
initiatives, so get grantfunding.
I'm like, yeah, but for what?
Like I don't even know if thisthing is really going to work,

(01:29:13):
though you know.
So for me, it was always thatLike, how do I know that this
business is going to pick up?
How do I know that it can bescalable?
How do I know?
Let's test it and test themodel.
And so I put a lot of my ownfunds behind it, Guy.
I was poor, I was poor, that'sactually my next question I was
poor Kels.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
You did all these jobs, all these contracts, all
these gigs, but you alwaysfunded the whole project.
I think, even when I visitedyou or something, I'm the only
maybe okay, maybe I should notshout out to myself, but I'm the
only guy who came all the wayjust to see, after even the
program, because I think Imentioned that guys, this is
just a program that lasted maybea few months, but when you go

(01:29:55):
to implement this, you need somesoberness, you need to learn
and relearn.
Right, and I made anintentional visit, and I think
this was a bit also selfish,because by then, actually, I
think I mentioned that if I didnot, I was going out to become
an artist or a musician orsomething.

(01:30:17):
I was like you have a studio,let me come and see how does
that environment look like, andthis is something I do a lot.
For sure, when I want to dosomething, I visit some place
where this thing is happeningand feel if my soul is at peace.
Then I come and I find you witha studio.
You guys are busy doing a lot ofthings Working, drawing some

(01:30:41):
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 isamazing.
And then I find a guitar inthat academy, not even still
there.
I tried to play it and thatgave me some sort of thought
like, am I really ready to be anartist?

(01:31:02):
What does it really take?
Actually, for me it was also alearning moment, because when
you told me you're using allyour funds to run everything.
You don't want the space to beclosed For some reason, I said,
okay, let me first look for alot of money.

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
A lot of money.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
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 beyou.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
They thank God.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
But, Kels, how did you manage?
Because I know for you it wasreal time, Like you're working
for this project, you're fundingthis other project and that's
hard, especially for someonewith a family and you have your
personal needs and all that.
Was it the drive to impact?
Was it the drive to bringchange?
What is that?

(01:31:56):
I don't know if you still do it, but yeah it's something that's
really important for impactinnovators to understand.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
Okay, so one of the things that I normally say.
It's something that I say tomyself, and I cannot imagine a
day passing without me addinganything to the world.
I'm like then what's the what'sthe point of me, my life,
what's the value of my life ifI'm not bringing anything and I
don't have a contribution?
Yeah, yeah.

(01:32:24):
And so everything that I do andI think since, again since
childhood.
There are so many challenges inthe world.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:36):
Nowadays, impact innovation has become such a
cliche and such a fashionablespace that I find, in many
instances, people are notinnovating to solve challenges,
they're innovating for fame,which is a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:32:53):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:54):
And that's why we have several innovations that
they'll go out.
They will, they will gainmomentous 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 thisnumber of years?
Like, talk to me about whatexactly is it solving?

(01:33:15):
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 knowfor the next 50 years it will do
something revolutionary.
I am not in a hurry.
I am not in a hurry to buildsomething that will fail.

(01:33:35):
I am going to take time,understand myself and because
one of the things about theinnovation journey you're also
changing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
You're also changing, you're learning and the
environment is also changing andwe put pressure on ourselves to
create the next best thing in ayear.
That is some bs, and I feelthat even for a lot of
innovative venetian innovationprojects, that's some bs.
Yeah, we do these boot campsand you want somebody to come up
with something that's going tosolve one, two, three in one
week.
Are you nuts?
Because that problem has a lifeon its own, of its own.

(01:34:07):
Now, if that person is notgoing to be invested in
understanding, we keep sayingfall in love with the problem.
But you're told to fall in lovewith the problem is basically
go on Google and search.
You have no clue, especiallyfor a lot of people and I'm
going to speak for gender A lotof people who are innovating
within gender space, a lot ofpeople who are innovating within
gender space.
I'm like you have no clue.

(01:34:28):
How many girls have you sat downand talked to outside of a
focus group, a control focusgroup, in your office?
How many streets and slums haveyou visited?
How many young, pregnant girlshave you talked to?
How many raped girls have youtalked to?
How many boys who have sisters,who are suffering from one, two
.
Have you talked to how manyparents have you talked to?
How many parents have youtalked to?
How many teachers have youtalked to how many?

(01:34:49):
And when you say girls, it's notjust one age group.
Have you spoken to them acrossage groups?
Do you understand theirperceptions and how those
perceptions change?
Because most of the timesomebody will say I'm innovating
for girls, but listen me.
At 13, I am very different fromhow 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, andeven all the way girls do not

(01:35:11):
stop changing.
Until you're what your 40s, wechange.
And it's not just 40s, weconsistently change.
And this is the same thing formen.
But I'm just speakingspecifically because my example
is around gender and tech forgirls and tech for girls.
Yeah, so when you say I'minnovating for women, I'm like
which one?
All my programs for women.

(01:35:32):
I'm like which ones?
Single mothers, married women.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
The one who are affected by FGM, the one who are
affected by HIV.

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
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 allwomen, then if we go into the
criteria of your program, youwill have drawn out all these
personas and found a way to meetthe specific needs of each one,

(01:36:05):
because we have this blanketstatement I'm innovating for
women.
I'm like Bias, did you spendtime to actually understand this
person?
What she's thinking, her needs,her changing desire, human
behavior, what actually makesher make a decision?
But even if you're innovatingfor her, you cannot just
question her.
Question her ecosystem, becauseshe does not exist in a silo.

(01:36:29):
Talk to the men, talk to thebrother, talk to the teacher.
If you're innovating forstudents, speak to the ecosystem
.
If you're innovating for thewoman and this does not take one
month, one week, it takes time.
And back to impact innovation.
What gives me my drive is, likeI said, michael, I want to

(01:36:51):
create something and I alwayssay it that outlasts me,
outlasts generation.
I want my granddaughter to beable to be alive.
And it's not even just sayingmy grandmother had to do no, but
to say that they thought of us.
No, but to say that theythought of us, because for most
of the problems that I faced asa child, if somebody stood
before I was born and created asolution to it, I would not have

(01:37:13):
gone through it, and most ofthe challenges that I've been
through are very silly for us tohave not created solutions to
and perhaps there are manypeople who could have created
solutions to them, but theydidn't think that it was
important.
Somebody else will do it.
So I am here.
As long as we are here andwe're talking about impact
innovation, let's truly createfor impact and not for fame.
And impact is not somethingthat just lasts two years after

(01:37:34):
your grant funding is run out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
And I have to speak about this.

Speaker 3 (01:37:39):
We talk about impact innovation, we talk about grants
and it has to be funded.
I'm like, when those funds runout, can?

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
it be self-sustainable.

Speaker 3 (01:37:48):
And we talk about self-sustainability as this.
I'm very uncomfortable with howwe refer to a program or a
product being self-sustaining.
I'm like it has to be thefabric 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 putfuel to a flame that was already

(01:38:11):
there and that should also beable to fuel your sustainability
model and not to be the end allbe all, because there are too
many programs that just diebecause money ran out.
We could not rent the fancyoffice, I could not pay myself,
and so I'm going to close itdown.
Then you did not start it forthe right reasons in the first
place, and so the reason thatI'll do all these projects and

(01:38:33):
I'll do all the things that I doand I'm like I want to find
something that can outlast me.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
Kelzi, something you said when I visited you and I'll
never forget, I still have notforgotten when.
I still have not forgotten when, actually I interrogated the
academy, the dance academy, andactually I saw a couple of
sessions.
Interrogated is the word you didand one of the things that you

(01:38:59):
told me that actually made meactually get convinced that it
might not happen in the nextfive years or ten years, but
it's going to happen.
It might not even be you whowill do it, but what you started
actually will get us there.
So you told me you want tostart juliet's academy of dance.
I want to start an africanjuliet level academy of dance,
and I was like what is juliet?

(01:39:21):
Maybe I didn't ask thisverbally, but what is doing?
And afterward I checked outJuliet and I was so convinced I
was like you know what, let mekeep this contact.
And one way or the otherthere's a reason.
Maybe you say that how is thatgoing?

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
So what I said was I want to start Juliet for Africa.
So basically, it's not Juliet inAfrica, it is that I was
talking about that level ofprofessionalism and not just for
dance but for the creative arts, and the whole idea is marrying
the creative arts and whereit's come to the creative arts
with the sciences and technology.

(01:39:59):
And so, basically, creativearts, innovation of the sciences
and creating a space whereartists you know this thing
where whenever we're talkingabout the creative economy,
people think, oh, it's justmusicians and writers.
I am like scientists arecreatives.
Data scientists have a massivechallenge right now.

(01:40:21):
When COVID hit, I was giventhis example at the Data Tamasha
last week whereas when COVIDhit, we had a lot of data being
generated in real time, but wehad a big challenge.
The biggest challenge was howdo you make that data, how do
you visualize that data in a waythat a layman would understand
it and be able to use it to makeinformed decisions?

(01:40:41):
And we had a lot of data outthere and information well
translated into information, butpeople were not able to use it
to make informed decisionsbecause of how we were
presenting that information roleto play in the sciences,

(01:41:04):
because what it helps to do iscommunicate different
experiences, different pieces ofinformation, different
perspectives in a way thatpeople can consume them and
connect to them more, soactively.
And we have not connected thosetwo so far.
So, unleashed Academy forCreative Arts and Leadership.
I'm going to tell you right nowthat the name is going to
change, by the way, and launchunveil the brand soon.

(01:41:26):
But, um, we're still in thatspace and what we're starting
off with is an artistdevelopment program called nsani
imar.
We're going to relaunch it nextyear, really looking at now
creating a space where they'reexposing creatives to a lot more
than just, yeah, a danceworkshop.
Yeah, I'm like, isn't it?
I'm like it can like it can bemore, so I'll be more at liberty

(01:41:50):
to speak about that.
When we're about to launch,I'll definitely get in touch
with you and we'll go into thata little bit more.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
No worries, girls.
What do you think the tech hasto play a part?
Now that you're saying you'reusing it actually even to fast
track some of your launch, someof your experiences, some of the
surveys or sites that you'redoing, do you think that maybe
what could have taken five yearsnow can take half of that time?

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
So basically what?
How is tech accelerating?

Speaker 2 (01:42:24):
the work that we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:42:25):
Yes, I guess it's giving us different ways to
think about how to solve bigproblems, yeah, right, and the
fact that, listen, we still havea massive problem with
connectivity.
We cannot avoid thoseconversations, true, true, but
the great thing is it's givingus new ways to be creative, new

(01:42:46):
ways to think about solving forproblems, that we have new ways
to connect and then, even interms of even organizing our own
thoughts and projecting towardsthe 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 allit is.

(01:43:06):
Tech is a tool.
That's what it is, that's allit is.
Tech is a tool.
If you have no innovative spirit, innovative thinking, if that
creativity lacks, tech will donothing for you.
It will do nothing for you.
There are too many peoplecreating apps that will have no
life out there.
I'm pretty sure people willcome to you, michael, I want to
create an app for one, two,michael, but I want to create an

(01:43:26):
app what?
For one, two, three, but I wantto 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 itenables us to do and to move the
visions and the dreams that wehave along.
Tech is not the end all be all,but then we have a big
challenge right now, even in theimpact space, where everybody

(01:43:49):
wants to come up with something.
Tech and I'm like but whatexactly are you calling tech?
And to a lot of people, tech isan app.
I'm like technology issomething that helps you do
something better, and so itdoesn't matter how you
disseminate it.
A hundred percent.
So even the way they're stableis this this was a technology at
some point Like this this issomething else.
I mean, sorry, this is a wasinnovation at some point, Right?

(01:44:11):
So, um, so, yeah, it'sdefinitely helping, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
So, uh, on that note, and it's kind of exciting, so
you said you have more than oneproduct.
As you actually concludetoday's conversation, no comment
, which means we will have morediscussion on different aspects,
because I like even how youlook at church, spirituality,

(01:44:39):
involvement of dance and musicinto those activities.
There's a festival.
You invited me before I leftand, by the way, we're talking
about 2017 or 2018 or 2016.
I can't even remember whichyear it was.

Speaker 3 (01:44:55):
When you came, it was 2016.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
2016,.
Right, I wish I could haveattended, because then, of
course, I could have hadsomething to contribute, but I
could not be able to.
So those are conditions that Iactually can have when I come
back or when you come to Nairobi, because some of these
conversations, actually I seethem playing a part in
influencing or educating peopleon certain things that we are

(01:45:23):
taking for granted, and all endsthe other side taking us for
granted for it.
So in this case, would you liketo shed some light?
You don't have to say whatyou're launching, but at least
the impact Just for lack of abetter word and not in the realm

(01:45:44):
of throwing the words aroundthat it's going to have in this,
because your mission actuallylooks like it has several,
several impacts along the way Inthe nature that is focusing on
girls, on gender, and it's notjust specifically girls, but

(01:46:06):
gender and issues that relate tothat.
So do you want to shed somelight on that?

Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
Yeah, sure.
So, just so, the, the, the whatyou're talking about
specifically is the productthat's going to launch next week
, right, so so we, we do haveproducts within the creative
economy that sorry, the creativeindustry that are mostly so
creative products and this isnot just for this is not girl
child specific, it's forcreatives.

(01:46:32):
And then we have work thatwe're doing within the social
enterprise space.
So, for example, we have theshow called Nipedili, which is
basically Africa's shark tankfor social enterprises.
Wow, but haven't you watched it, michael?
I have, you have.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
The reason why I didn't want to go into that is I
watched one episode and I hadmy own opinion.
You have your, it's bad Maybethat should be another, separate
conversation altogether.
A hundred percent.
I have a lot to say with theseshantag prototypes that we have
you know.
We see, and in Kenya actually Ihave story for this See

(01:47:08):
something, it's not bad inessence.
But the way we implement it,it's always straightforward.
You guys end up getting hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:47:18):
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 wentthrough a.
So there was the Tudyengi TZInnovation Challenge, which was
something that Unleashed Africadid.
That was financed by HansSeidel Foundation.
We do that together with True myAsia and so innovators,
entrepreneurs, got training inentrepreneurship.

(01:47:40):
They went through a mentorshipperiod.
So there was an entire programthat they went through for
months, right, and then fromthere, miped.
There was an entire programthat they went through for
months and then from there,mipedili was an investor
matchmaking component, and wewere thinking about how do you
do it in a way that people whoare not part of these ecosystem,

(01:48:02):
people who are not part of thefour walls of these trainings,
can get to kind of understandwhat are the different things
that people speak to speak abouton the other end, because in
many of our communities, peopleare not privy to those
conversations.
So how do you use media to kindof open that door to say, well,
these are the conversationsthat are being had, these are
the concepts that are beingspoken about, and so, basically,

(01:48:24):
for us, nip is a is an arm ofexposure so it's not.
Do not just think about it interms 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 manystories I have had of
entrepreneurs who binge watchedto find.
okay, so these are the thingsthat I should write, these are
the concepts that I should haveand so so, even before they went

(01:48:46):
to their first accelerator.
So that was a big objective forus.
So it's not even the objectivethat, for example, they do Shark
Tank with.
Those are not ours.
And another thing also was toget our entrepreneurs seen.
We have several entrepreneurswho were on Nipedili and I can

(01:49:07):
speak.
Well, I've not gone consent toshare their stories here, so I
won't, but they were able to.
So one of the stories he afounder in actually UAE, saw him
on Nipedili, so where otherpeople see them and are able to
call them.
So there was just also thatvisibility aspect.
Right, and you've done a shortpitch and you're seen.

(01:49:28):
So some people don'tnecessarily care about what the
investors are telling you.
I just want to see what youhave to say, because people are
looking for entrepreneurs inEast Africa.
But what we're launching nextweek, what we're launching next
week is Rise Up.
Rise Up is Africa's firstdigital safe space for girls.
So Rise Up is right now.
The MVP is what we're launching.
It's still a progressive webapp.

(01:49:49):
It's going to become anapplication 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 forgirls the opportunity, the
Instagram of opportunities, butfor women, women only.
Again, women only.
If you're a man and you joinRise Up, you shall be booted,
trust me, you shall be bootedoff, but but yeah, so they get

(01:50:14):
access to curated opportunities.
So there's a big thing aboutwomen 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 womenapplying is very
disproportionate.

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
Women do not apply to opportunities?

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Why?
Yeah.
I'm going to ask you why it canbe for another.
I have a lot of whys, yeah.
From the research that we'vedone, we have a lot of whys?

Speaker 2 (01:50:38):
I've also been asking myself why.

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
But so basically so that's a conversation for
another day that Rise Up canactually answer to, because we
have a lot of this data but soit's a platform where women get
curated opportunities,information on opportunities.
So from jobs, internships,volunteer scholarships,
conferences, basically thedifferent events, etc so they're
funding the eight differenttypes of opportunities that will

(01:51:01):
get there.
So when you're getting on RiseUp, it will ask you questions.
It will ask the woman not you,but women, if you were a woman
questions about themselves andit will curate the experience to
your needs.
So if I get on Rise Up and I'mlike, 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 toother information.

(01:51:23):
So in case, for example,perhaps you're not looking for
an internship and that's notwhat you've selected, but maybe
you have a relative once, thatthat's information that you can
still have.
Yeah, it works really well forsomebody who is here.
You probably need to go andrise up to get what.
I mean.
It's pretty well built, if Ihave to say so myself.
It also gives her access to alearning lab.
So what we do again, we curateinformation.

(01:51:44):
So sexual productive health, so.
So there's health and fitness,there's entrepreneurship,
there's innovation, there'scareer guidance and there is
another that I am from personalbranding right, so you.
So we have content that wedon't create ourselves, but we
work with different partners toget this content.
Some content we get on youtube.
What we do is you curate,curate an experience that has a

(01:52:05):
woman learning things from Rightnow.
We tell people just go onYouTube, just go online.
I'm like listen, the World WideWeb is a World Wide Web for a
reason and it has spiders thatcan eat you up.
So when you're telling a younggirl, go online and it's not
necessarily a safe environmentout there- how are you sure that
the information she's gettingwill not necessarily put her in

(01:52:26):
a compromising situation, whichmost times is what happens.
So we curate that information,but we also give different
partners an opportunity to putinformation out there.
So we have a community of about5,000 girls.
Basically, it's organic growth,so we have this is pre-launch,
by the way, so you have accessto that.
But another thing that we haveand I love about Rise Up we also

(01:52:48):
have a community, so it'sbasically your WhatsApp, but on
this platform, and I just haveto mention this here.
So Rise Up is age segmented 13to 15, 16 to 18, 19 to 25, 26 to
35, have a very differentexperience on Rise Up.
The way you're going to talkabout sexual reproductive health
to a 13-year-old and most ofthem come in through their

(01:53:08):
parents' phones, by the way isvery different from how you're
going to talk about it to a26-year-old.
So we curate those experiencesbased on the age segmentation.
So we also have okay.
One of the findings that we gotas we were experimenting was
the power of community toreinforce and encourage a woman
to uptake an opportunity toengage in a conversation.

(01:53:30):
So Rise Up is community, butnot only that.
It also allows the peoplewithin our community Rise Up
community to createsub-communities for themselves.
So it's communities within alarger community, and what Rise
Up is also going to be able toallow women to do.
So that's not available in thisiteration, but in the next

(01:53:52):
iteration it's going to besomething that we're working on.
You're also going to be able toreport abuse.
So in the workspace, in anyspace, you find some sort of
abuse.
Somebody touches you, like Iwas touched, somebody touches
your bum and you don't want that.
You can come through and sayone, two, three here, right, but
we're also going to havecounseling available on the
platform.
So if you need to talk to acounselor, you see that's also

(01:54:16):
going to be available there aswell.
So, basically, what it is likewe're calling it.
So, like I said, it's a digitalsafe space where we have where
we give access or we curate.
And the reason I use the wordcurate we have where we give
access or we curate, and thereason I use the word curate if
a company or an organization hasany scandal, we will not put
you up.
Why not.
If we do put you up, we're goingto put a disclaimer next to it.

(01:54:37):
There are too many companiesthat are out there that women go
to and they face so much abuseand we do not speak about this
because basically it's like I'msending a goat out for slaughter
so I am not going to put it upthere.
So again, there's a team thatliterally comes through before
putting anything up there.

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
So if it's there, it really has been.

Speaker 3 (01:54:58):
Yes, it's been vetted .

Speaker 2 (01:55:01):
So I was to ask now that if someone touches, you,
you have to put there, and theonly thing that you get is
counselling.
Someone touches you.
You have to put them.
The only thing that you get iscounseling.

Speaker 3 (01:55:07):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So the counseling and thereport abuse are two different
things.
There's a counseling where theyactually they'll get access to
counselors, so if you have facedany trauma of some sort and so
on and so forth, that's, that'syour own counseling.
The report abuse button issomething completely different.

(01:55:29):
So we're working with differentassociations that deal with law
, legal issues, to be able totake on those cases and make
sure that these women getjustice.

Speaker 2 (01:55:34):
Yeah, so there's a connection between people who
can take action and thereporting.

Speaker 3 (01:55:42):
Yes, 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:55:44):
Is that the part that actually I didn't get?

Speaker 3 (01:55:47):
Yeah, that's common.
The counselling and the reportabuse are two different things.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
Okay, and all of them are voluntary.

Speaker 3 (01:55:54):
For the girls themselves.
Yes, so it's your ownexperience.
We don't get.

Speaker 2 (01:56:01):
Now that you don't welcome men in this platform and
you said we need an ecosystem.
How is that possible in thisplatform?
And you said we need anecosystem?
How is that?
How is that possible in this,in this platform?

Speaker 3 (01:56:09):
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 spoketo mothers, we spoke to teachers
, we spoke to religious leaders,we spoke to um community
leaders.
So we, literally, we spoke tobrothers, we spoke to teachers,
we spoke to religious leaders,we spoke to community leaders.
So, literally, we spoke tobrothers.
We spoke to the ecosystem as wewere building it.

(01:56:33):
Looking at these are thechallenges that women face, that
girls face.
What are the ways?
What ways do you feel?
Can I share one story as we'rewrapping up, please?
So, in one of the focus groupswe were doing with parents, by
the way, when we wereinterviewing fathers I mean,
sorry, parents I actuallyexpected more mothers to show up
.
I really did.

(01:56:53):
90% of those who showed up weremen.
Shocking.
We were discussing challengesthat girls face.
The ones who showed up were menand after you know, when you're
conducting a focus group, it'salso really important to create
a safe space for those you'respeaking to, for them to speak
freely.
Most of the times that we runthese sessions, they're so

(01:57:14):
technical and they're sotheoretical, that people are not
sharing freely, right.
And so we got to a point whereone of the fathers 62-year-old
man, he broke down finally andhe said listen, if my daughter
comes to me and she asks me, shetells me oh dad, here's my

(01:57:37):
dream, this is what I want to do.
And, by the way, we had thisfocus group with parents after
we spoke with all the girls andthe biggest point of contention
from them were parents, that theparents were the biggest cause
of our downfall.
Our insecurities start and endwith our parents.
It was that.
And mostly fathers Fathers arenot present and we were not just

(01:57:58):
speaking to middle class, wespoke across, you know,
socioeconomic strata and theanswers were very, very, very
related.
But so this man says I, when mydaughter comes to me and she
has a dream and she tells meabout it, she tells me I want to
do one, two, three.
And I'm trying to translate itinto Swahili, in English,

(01:58:22):
because he said it in Swahili,it makes a lot of sense in my,
in my.
Sahili in my head.
But yes, but he says how can Itell this girl that I don't know
how to help her as a father andas a man of the house?
The moment I am to tell thisgirl that I can't help her, I am
lowering my value and myposition in her mind.

(01:58:44):
And so what am I going to tellher?
I am going to chase her away,tell her to talk to her mother.
I'm going to tell her who doyou think I am?
Don't bother me with suchproblems.
Not that I don't want to helpher.
It's because I do not know howto.
I don't have that network, Idon't know where to send her to,
where she can be safe, and so Iwill chase her away.
And he was saying this veryemotionally, in Swahili, of

(01:59:06):
course, and for those Swahilispeakers, you know how this
lands.
It was a very heavyconversation.
I will chase her away, but inmy heart of hearts, I know what
she's going to face out there.
But I am not going to malign myimage as dad, as father baba,
in front of this woman, of thisgirl, and so I will do that to

(01:59:30):
save face so if I have somewherewhere I can take my daughters
and know that they will be safe.
bring it to us yesterday, yeah.
So, when it comes to you knowthat ecosystem right People
within the ecosystem many,especially parents, do want to

(01:59:50):
be there for their children.
Many just don't know how to,because either they were not
taught or the environmentalcircumstances that they have
been have, they have beenrendered into.
Do not afford them the luxuriesand I'll call them luxuries to
be, able to know, because mostof them are also going through
traumatic, massive traumaticexperiences.
Yes, so this for us is not justa space, that a platform that's
going to be helpful to thegirls.

(02:00:10):
It's going to also be helpfulto those within their ecosystems
to be able to support them.

Speaker 2 (02:00:14):
Yeah, awesome, awesome.
So, girls, thank you so muchfor sharing your story today,
and it's it's, it's quite, it'squite an amazing, amazing story.
I know it's just past red.
There's some details that Iwould love to ask about, but
since you know, we are all herein the world, given that God
blesses us with that, what wouldbe your parting shot, you know,

(02:00:39):
for our listeners.

Speaker 3 (02:00:42):
Can I look into this camera Please?
Nice, okay, so my parting shortwould be I'm just angling it
properly.
Seriously, my parting short.

Speaker 2 (02:00:55):
Kels, were you in the media for some time?
No, I should be, you should be,I should be, are you?

Speaker 3 (02:01:01):
giving me a job.
But really my parting short isthis but really my parting shot
is this there are too manyproblems in the world for us not
to be the solutions to them.
There are too many of uspointing fingers looking for
other people to solve for thingsthat we know innately.
We have a piece of the puzzle,for there's no person on this

(02:01:25):
planet that has the entirejigsaw puzzle fitted in of how
you can solve a problem, butevery person comes with a piece
of puzzle.
Now, when we together do thebits that we can and agree to
connect, we can clearly see howthe entire puzzle fits in.

(02:01:46):
So those are two things.
One, make sure that you're partof the solution.
Make sure that you are part ofthe solution, and that could
mean learning and learning.
Do not be too proud, especiallydear African.
Do not be too proud to say youdo not know.
Go out there and find theanswers.
If you are an innovator and youare saying that you're solving a

(02:02:08):
problem and you tell me thatyou're only going to spend a
week, a month, a few months tofigure out what that problem is,
you're lying to yourself,you're lying to the world.
Invest time in understanding theintrinsic sub causes, to the
causes that are causing thatproblem to be in existence.
Submerge yourself in reallyunderstanding that problem so

(02:02:30):
that solution could also beholistic, and then, on the other
end, let's be comfortable withgrowing the mental fortitude to
collaborate actively so thatthese solutions can connect and
scale at rapid levels, becauseright now we have different
people doing different things.

(02:02:50):
Everybody wants to be called afounder, a CEO, a what have you,
a CIO, whatever you want to becalled.
That's not helping us take ourcontinent forward and most of
the problems that exist stillexist because people are too
proud to connect, are too proudto really step in and sacrifice,
do what they need to do for usto come up with the solutions we
need to.
We are living in the dreams ofour forefathers.

(02:03:14):
There was too much bloodshed,too much sacrifice given for us
to be complacent and to not takeon the mantle that has been
passed on to us.
What are we going to pass on tothe next future generations?
It is time we keep sayingAfrica's time is now, but
Africa's time, it will only beAfrica's time when people stop
sleeping in mediocrity.

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
Yes, yes, I agree, I agree.
Thank you so much, kels.
It's always an honor to alwayshave this conversation with you.
It's just that now we're havingthem with the mic and recorded
right, and Kea is actually Idon't know, maybe I don't know.

(02:03:54):
I feel like you need most ofthis platform.
It touched so many people Evenwhen we were having this
conversation.
Actually, I could hear youspeak to some specific people in
this conversation it might notsound like it, even through your
life experiences.
I'm looking forward to ourviewers, our subscribers, who

(02:04:17):
will give us feedback of whatactually they learned from it
and what some action points theycan start, maybe even taking
their life.
But for me, as I've made it ahabit now, I'll part short with
the African proverb, especiallycoming from Tanzania and maybe
borrowed from Tanga and MubasaUmodya ninguvu Unity is power.

(02:04:42):
There's nothing as important asAfrican countries coming
together with a purpose, and thepurpose is to end the suffering
of poverty, because I feel likeAfricans are quite united.
All these ula balu of you knowall these other problems.
If we really deal with poverty,everything else becomes a

(02:05:07):
mirage and you can deal with itsimply.
So I'll end it there.
This was Impact Masters.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Please subscribe on our YouTubechannel, follow us on different
podcast channels that we havefrom Spotify, itunes and Google.

(02:05:28):
You'll also find us on AmazonMusic.
As Impact Masters and AfricaStalking Retold.
Leave a comment, a like and ifyou like the guests, we can
always host them again.
Please let us know, but don'tforget we feature impact masters

(02:05:49):
across Africa telling Africanstories so that when you listen
to them, you should be able tolearn one or two things, as well
as make sure that we build ourown legacy when we are alive.
Thank you so much.
Until next time, I'm MichaelKemadi.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

Crime Junkie