Basing on being an Entrepreneur rather than a Job Seeker.

By Namazzi Victoria Mary.

Gone are the days when the tales of the educated focused more on studying to earn oneself job against studying to start up work. Young people today have started opening up their minds to the reality of “He who doesn’t work, neither shall he eat.”

In relation to the accelerating levels of unemployment in the country, Twinomugisha Bright a grocery vender in Kikoni couldn’t wait to get employed on white collar job that would provide space for him to earn a living. He rather came up with his own form of work of vending groceries which he rides on his wooded wheel barrow and treks place to place around Kikoni selling goodies like tomatoes, onions, carrots, pineapples, mangoes and more. Bright says that he has been involved in this for the past 12 years ever since he was in his senior four and he is equally happy about the fact that he can fend for himself and the family at large. “Selling groceries is a job that I cannot just give up for anything because through it I have managed to build a house in Kampala, pay school fees for my sibling as well cater for my needs as a person,” said Bright.

Joyce Kyalimpa one of Bright’s customers commends him for being a very hardworking and committed young man lest the majority that look upon being employed with in an air conditioned company on a skyscraper abroad and within just to earn peanuts at the end of the day. “Customer satisfaction has always been this man’s goal ever since I started buying groceries from him, I always get the best of his service,” Joyce continues.

Regardless of the different levels of success that this young entrepreneur has achieved, there have been and still many challenges regarding his business that have attributed to a level of setbacks. He says, that during different seasons commodities take on different changes in price rates in form of elevation in prices as well as fluctuation in prices of commodities after buying and selling them at the different price rates there by leading to immense losses. Bright continues to say that these seasons vary in relation to the climatic changes that take course in the country where by some crops fail to grow during periods of heavy rains and so during periods of a lot of sunshine there by leading to less output thus elevation in prices during seasons of scarcity. The levels of perishability of these goods as well worries him especially when he fails to meet up to the required sales.

Nevertheless, there is no business that can only take on the successful bit without encountering challenges. Bright advises young people especially those that are clinging to education as their prime to success to challenge themselves upon starting up small initiatives, under any area they feel can make them thrive in their socio-economic livelihood. “Just with my first capital of Fifty thousand Uganda shillings (50,000shs) I have managed to flourish over the time. What you have is never too small to grow into what you want, it just takes times of endurance and commitment for one to start hitting his goals.” says Bright.

Kikoni today is mainly dominated by students that are taking on Education at Makerere University. This very year this same University had 13,000 students and more that graduated in different specialties and majority looking up to being employed in various spaces. But the question remains, “What is that x-factor that one possess and feels it stands out against the other competitors making him or her fit into this competitive circle of employment spaces?” Well, all one needs is to think beyond the box of being educated and focus on what they can really do fit in this evolution of economics that the world has offered.