My parents had 2 choices in life; go to school, work hard, and get employed, or drop out and survive. One percent of them are the ones who branched out to set up their businesses and they are the likes of Munga of Equity, Chris Kirubi of Centum and a million others failed.
Times have since changed, you will get first-class honors graduate from ‘The’ University of Nairobi selling eggs on the roadside and a form four leaver driving and living a comfortable life. So, what changed? Did education become meaningless?
Please do not misconstrue this as advocacy against education. I am pro-education and I have faith in the system but I encourage the youth to use education as the lens through which they will view the rest of the world and not the key to success as was engraved in them.
Time is what changed because, over time, we have developed new systems and ways of working. We have also mechanized quite a lot which means we are decreasing our dependency on human labor thus fewer jobs. With the introduction of the internet, new opportunities have emerged which makes it easier to work from anywhere because the world officially became a global village.
If you are seated somewhere thinking that I am talking about those zoom calls everyone seems to be getting the hype on, you are wrong! Allow me to digress for a minute; why is everyone so fascinated with zoom calls? You call a Kenyan living in a bedsitter on Kayole and they hang up on you and send you a message; Niko zoom. Dear Kenyans, humble yourselves and understand that zoom has been there and before zoom, there were other communication options such as skype. So please do not think that you have discovered a new planet.
If you are seated at home and thinking of complaining about how hard times have become, please take some time to understand what Ajira Digital can do for you. The Ajira Digital Program is a government initiative driven by the Ministry of Information, Communications, and Technology to empower over one million young people to access digital job opportunities.
The main objectives are to raise the profile of digital work; Promote a mentorship and collaborative learning approach to finding digital work; Provide Kenyans with access to digital work, and finally Promote Kenya as a destination for online workers.
So please take some time and learn this and take advantage of this opportunity and make a decent living in the comfort of your home.