Meet the Participants of Educate!’s First Bootcamp for Out-of-School Youth: Q&A with Wilberforce
In 2019, Educate! launched a social enterprise entity called NawiriPro (“thrive professionally” in Kiswahili) to build our first model for out-of-school youth. Our vision for Educate!’s new Out-of-School Youth Solutions is to create a marketplace of affordable education-to-employment pathways for the large number of youth who cannot access secondary school. Today, we’re exploring building bootcamps for a number of high-growth industries in East Africa, such as agriculture and farming, as well as tailoring them for specific groups of youth like young women and refugees.
Our pilot bootcamp, adapted to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, aims to provide motorbike taxi and courier drivers with the skills and resources to grow their businesses as well as keep themselves and their clients safe from COVID-19. Exciting early results have shown that this model creates meaningful impact, and it was even recognized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for doing so.
The first cohort of youth to complete the three-week bootcamp earned over 110% more income than they did prior to participating in the bootcamp, with the top drivers earning as much as 4x more.
We recently caught up with a few members of NawiriPro's first cohort of motorcycle couriers, and we are excited to introduce you to Wilberforce, a budding young entrepreneur from the Kakamega Province in Kenya. We sat down with Wilberforce to learn more about his story, his business, and his experience in Educate!’s newest solution.
Wilberforce says “In the bootcamp, I learned about strategies to increase business. NawiriPro taught me the best places to find work. I want to continue working in this business and eventually purchase my own bike. Long term, I want to own multiple motorbikes so that I am able to employ other people.”
What were your interests while you were growing up?
I was a young entrepreneur that loved farming. I planted lots of vegetables, which I sold. My other business was tilling for others, and they paid me. I loved doing all these things even though my dad was financially stable. I always hated asking for money from my parents so that’s how I made my spending money.
What economic opportunities were you pursuing before you became a motorcycle courier?
After school, my aunt and dad convinced me to become a teacher. My father is also a teacher. The subjects I taught were Science and Social Studies. I taught for 2 years but was not passionate about it, so I decided to leave the job.
It was difficult getting my aunt and father to allow me to leave the teaching profession. Despite their disapproval, I started working as a construction worker. I went to a town called Juja and worked hard. I wanted to prove to my family that jua cali (informal work) can be profitable. I have had other informal jobs too, such as selling mandazis and coffee, and then I soon joined the boda-boda (motorbike taxi and courier driver) business.
How was your experience in the bootcamp? Did your participation impact your business at all?
Although I was making money before NawiriPro, I did not have a saving mindset. Before NawiriPro, I had issues managing money because I thought “I have money today so I will get more tomorrow.” Whenever I started earning more money, I started misusing it. Then a friend told me about the Educate! bootcamps. Financial management is one of the biggest advantages of joining.
In the bootcamp, I also learned about strategies to increase business. NawiriPro taught me the best places to find work. I was not aware of this before, so I stayed in one place where there was no business. I would also sometimes get in trouble with the police because I did not know which areas of the city allowed motorbikes. NawiriPro helped me learn about these areas, so that I can drive safely and make a profit.
Do you have any goals for the future?
I want to continue working in this business and eventually purchase my own bike. Long term, I want to own multiple motorbikes so that I am able to employ other people.
Moving forward, our team aims to continue learning from participants in our bootcamp model, like Wilberforce, and continue researching, testing, and validating new variations of these entrepreneurial, skills-based bootcamps. Our vision for Educate!’s Out-of-School Youth Solutions is to create a marketplace of viable alternatives to academic secondary school for out-of-school youth seeking to gain quality employment and improve their livelihoods.