Lessons learnt from overcoming hardships 

Before the lockdown, I had a target to make savings of at least 5,000 Kenyan shillings from the money I used to get as upkeep every month that I would later use to invest in something after I am done with graduation. Unfortunately, the lockdown came up and I had to come back to Uganda, attend lessons online without receiving any upkeep because I was at home. On reaching home I started spending my savings on data to enable me to access social media such as WhatsApp and Instagram to keep up with friends, download movies.  After one month into the lockdown, I realized I was soon going to be broke. I wanted to maintain a lifestyle of being on social media and at the same time achieve my target of saving money. I kept on thinking of various ways and options of how I could invest my savings to make more money with low risk of a loss or late time returns.

Fortunately, a good opportunity came up from one of my friends who brought up the mobile money idea (Mpesa in Kenya) where we could use our income to act as agents, generate commission from transactions we make that would be our profit. It involves low risks of losing the money and the return comes instantly since you get a commission for each transaction. Long story short, we collected our funds, registered, and started working at a supermarket owned by my friend’s mum supermarket to avoid the rent costs of getting a new place. It picked up well during the first month, we made 65,000 Uganda shillings (if converted is around 1,900kshs ), and currently we are getting around 240,000 Uganda shillings per month ( which is around 7,000kshs). I am now planning on expanding by adding another agent point at one of my cousin’s salon.

The take-home lesson from this is that there is always a way out. The key for my case was to pray, trust God but also be prepared to take up the opportunities He brings your way and surround yourself with people with whom you share similar goals. If it were not for my friend, I would never have thought of such a great idea. 

This article was written by David Kamoga.