Entrepreneur of the Week: Dreams Comes True to those who have faith

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE WEEK

"Every now and then a generation is called upon to be great. You can be that great generation." Nelson Mandela said, perhaps he meant this generation.

Today's entrepreneur are young, energetic and full of ideas. Young people are going for great pursuits without fear of limitation. Either due to circumstances or seeing great young entrepreneurs, these young entrepreneurs are not afraid to dream.

Indeed, that is the story of young leaders like Zack and the many entrepreneurs dreaming great dreams and not just dreaming them, but taking the next step of implementing these big ideas.

Zachuas Okonjo is a man of not so many words, but many visions. He is a man of what he himself calls crazy ideas always. But beyond just having visions that flow like a river, he is a true implementor, man of his words.

Mr Okonji trusts his madness, which led him to start a village school. His dream was to have a school that would serve 300 poor children. That is where the concept of the Inua Village school came about. Today the school exists empowering the village and parents.

The crazy ideas keep up, as he not only envisions this one school, but even further to become Bridge International which has been found right here in Kenya, 100 schools in 100 locations in Kenya and maybe later across East Africa. Each of these schools to be grouped together and served by a community and eventually put up several industries.

The great dreamer and visionary, Zachuas Ogonji Olopi, is a social genius who has been able to harness the great potential of communities and social entrepreneurship.

He says,

“ Sometimes, I have to slap myself to stop thinking and imagining things I want to do to change the world. To be honest, sometimes I feel the world has so much that needs to be resolved yet the time I have is barely enough to even blink “.

Indeed his enterprise is pure work of creativity and imagination one can say, for a man of a very young age such as this, this is nothing short of extraordinary.

“Generally, I am an optimist and I rarely wait for the puzzle to fit before I take a step. I have acted on a hunch or gut feeling many times. One day a friend of mine asked me whether I had been thinking about a very complex and difficult decision I had taken for a really long time. Truth is it had just popped up in my mind, I felt right about it and acted on it. But to make my friend confident that things will be okay and that he should trust me, I smiled and said- ‘Yeah I have thinking about for over a year now!!!!’ Thank God the decision worked-“ . Thank God it did work.

Perhaps you ask, how did he attain such mad confidence at such a young age?

Well, Zachuas Okonji started early when sold sugarcane in Class five during December Holidays. There used to be a football tournament a stone-throw away from his home. As the innovator he is, he was able to see the opportunity to make some money from the spectators. This would make his life on most holidays. Every other Holiday except December he sold firewood and banana ripening leaves at Luanda Market. This means walking 18 Kilometers with firewood or banana ripening leaves. “ This was no joke” He notes.

After high school, he and his brother had their first partnership. They opened a shop in Soweto Slums near Kayole, but it was only a matter of time before he and his brother closed shop. This was just one of the many businesses he closed as he tried to find the right fit. This business collapsed a few months later but this never stopped him from being a trader, once a trader always a trader. He kept at it.

He notes, “ I have been business long enough even before I knew I was doing it.”.

It is in the year 2013 when his true life mission would find him. Unlike the other businesses, he notes, " Operating a CBO without an alternative source of income is the best punishment one can ever have. On one hand, you are passionate about women, girls, the environment, education, health, or whatever problem you want to solve, and on the other hand, you do not have money to make that difference the way you would like it to happen."

It was this challenges that opened up his mind to the larger ideas. He needed to have impact, and he still needed to survive.

“ The struggle of fundraising and looking for donors to fund my passion was for me the trigger to constantly think about how I could raise money in a more independent way. Every day I would go for field work and encounter challenges that needed money and resources to be resolved and I did not have the money, I became very frustrated.

It is just like someone would go looking for a job to pay rent and they don’t find it or they work so hard at their place of work but never gets the satisfaction they want. These early challenges of managing a charity without money strengthened my resolve of building hybrid systems of both charity and business.”

Infact in 2013, he took up employment twice. The first time was because he was totally broke and could barely survive. And the second time was because he had really been frustrated by donors supporting his charity work so he decided to find employment at least make his own money and achieve more independence.

Good thing, in both cases, he also took up the jobs because they were closely tied to the charity and social enterprises he was building and hoped by serving the organizations I would get more networks and later would help his personal work grow.

Today he is a father of three businesess, which he refers to as children, he says; The Foundation (Five years old), The Textile Industry (One-year-old) and SACCO that’s five months old now.

“ Raising the three of them is crazy but, it’s fun to be around them and to work with my team to ensure each of them is fed the right diet. Oooh Sorry I also out of lust gave birth to another baby out of wedlock, Plomuna Project Investment Limited this has a growing problem. It is 3 years but looks like 6 months old. But it’s in perfect health and Its purpose is to give me a chance to help other people struggling to start their Charitable organizations to get started…I provide end-to-end consultancy by sharing my 8-year experiences with others- Plomuna is a perfect cover for that kind of work.”

This has all been possible through raising a series of small amounts over time, which he always ensure to be accountable to those that entrust him with finances. Those that give are the very heart of these successes, they give life to dreams. He always ensures a small percentage is set aside to build accountability infrastructure and organizational systems.

“ This has built the capacity of our work to receive funding from banks, government funds Uwezo fund and others.” As the Swahili saying goes, “ haba na haba hujaza kibaba” , he has over time become eligible for more support. He hopes that one day he will access IFC facilities.

The serial entrepreneur who has been at it, since primary school, getting serious in 2013 has survived to run four major businesses. Amidst a few failed ideas and businesses, the success of Inua village and the other business goes a long way to show possibilities of both courage and audacity.

He invites African entrepreneurs to a valued conversation where he says,

“ Africa will not grow with tenderpreneurship- We must endeavor to build businesses that solve African problems. We must design our enterprises and allow them to grow through phases just like Mercedes has evolved over the years. Because if we start our enterprise and we want them to produce products similar to the Mercedes Maybach S class model of 2022 without factoring in the time and investment it has taken to reach that level of perfection. We kill ourselves young. I actually believe before we jump onto technology and innovation we must do it manually to understand what we really need to solve our issues.” .

You can engage with Inua Village to Global Foundation, Inua Village Saving and Credit Cooperative and Inua Village Textile Industry Limited on social media. And you can also check website; www.villagetoglobal.org. Engage them on email us on info@villagetoglobal.org or hello@villagetoglobal.org for consultancy email at plomunaprojectscoltd@gmail.com

Check us on: https://dreamtribevillage.blogspot.com/p/dream-tribe.html