DARE TO BE DIFFERENT

Two roads diverged in the woods. I chose the one less travelled……… (Robert Frost)

In life we are often plagued by doubts concerning what we ought to do. We are afraid of stepping out of our comfort zones. We say things like; it has never been done before, how will I be viewed, who will help me and so on and so forth.

We are comfortable in following others and not taking the lead. “you do not have to reinvent the wheel” is the famous saying. As a result we do not see any more originality but duplication. We would rather ‘improve’ on someone else’s work than come up with a totally new concept.

The road less travelled is lonely, risky, bumpy and full of challenges. It takes a rare measure of determination for one to take it. It is not for the faint hearted, the fearful or undecided.  It takes conviction and commitment to be able to travel this road. It is for those who want to stand out and not blend in. It is taken by those who know that they are called to make a difference in whatever field they are currently in.  The fuel for this journey is passion; a burning desire, that consumes your every fear and uncertainty.

Great innovators that history boasts of today were men and women of passion, these people were not afraid to be different. They faced criticism and some were ostracized from society. This did not deter them. If anything, their rejection was their determination. Their motivation was not based on people’s approval. It was intrinsic. They lived the principle of ‘begin with the end in mind’. The joy that was set before them was greater than the persecution they faced. They chose the road less travelled and left an indelible mark because of their tenacity.

I challenge you today to follow your passion and take the lead.  Do not settle for the comfort zone and neither should you blend in. There is a whole world out there waiting to be discovered and explored. Stand out-DARE TO BE DIFFERENT.

At Kyusa, we empower a passion driven generation that will be change agents wherever they go. We do not give you passion but help you identify your passion and encourage you to put it to constructive use so as to better your life and the community around you. 

…..and that made all the difference.

You Owe It To Yourself

“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”

Lao Tzu.

The beginning of maturity is to realize that there is no one coming to the rescue. Everything you can be is entirely up to you. As time shifts, you notice that all your decisions and actions sum up to your current life. Where you want to be in future is usually determined by what things you do in the present. Therefore you need to pick yourself up and start making things happen.

You must start making serious decisions about where you want to go as a youth and endeavor to go through the necessary process to get there. You need to appreciate yourself as a resourceful person by viewing yourself according to who you are and not what you do. Quit defining yourself in accordance to your job and start selling who you are. You have skills to be discovered, books yet to be written, songs yet to be sung and talents yet to be displayed.

All of us have been put in this world to serve our best to other people through our special gifting. Therefore, you need to have full control over yourself in order to realize your purpose –that is self management. Self management is a critical module in the Kyusa curriculum.

Meir Liraz encourages people to learn to accept total responsibility for their lives. You need to constantly evaluate yourself and keep focused by doing one thing at a time. You also need to be kind to yourself and appreciate yourself when you achieve a set goal. Setting time limits for all you are meant to do is vital. Endeavor to do more in less time since,” he who kills time buries opportunities!”

Finally, you need to concentrate more on positive thoughts, master the habit of studying, journaling and avoid making excuses. Bill Hybels encourages you to,”Examine yourself and your life then change whatever you can change that will lighten your load and help you prevail in your calling.”

We therefore implore you to partner with Kyusa in ensuring that generations of change agents are raised who are self aware and have control over themselves.

Why Youth in Africa should become entrepreneurs?

Africa is increasingly taking its place on the global stage as a continent of growth and opportunity. Yet critical challenges remain, particularly the need to create a significant number of jobs for the continent’s booming population, and the need to build a cadre of home-grown business leaders able to access global markets and drive growth in a sustainable and inclusive manner. For this reason, African entrepreneurship is central to Africa’s future prosperity. The biggest business opportunities in the coming decade will be created by Africans who start businesses, generate jobs and wealth, and capture growth opportunities.

Considering the depressed state of the formal job market in Africa, it’s a good thing that more and more youth in Sub-Saharan Africa are looking to entrepreneurship to secure their future.  

 The education system that we have encourages students to become job seekers instead of job creators thus hindering youths from realizing their full potential. Even those who have not gone to school would prefer to get employed than to start their own businesses. Most of those who start their own businesses do so out of necessity. I believe that our attention should be on sustainability of entrepreneurship projects because entrepreneurship is a silver bullet to our unemployment challenges.

Why youth should become entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs are innovators. Think of all the new technology and ideas that have come to life over the past few years. Those were all once just an idea but amazing entrepreneurs brought those ideas to life.

You have the opportunity to change lives. Have an idea for a product or service that has the potential to make a huge impact? Go for it ,nothing is stopping you!

You serve as a role model. As an entrepreneur, people will look up to you. You have the ability to be a role model to family, friends, employees and community members. Your success serves as motivation and inspiration.

Your mind will always be utilized. Every single decision that involves your business is your responsibility, from the initial concept to the broader growth of the business.

You never feel undervalued. If you have ideas to make the business better; you can implement them right away. You don’t have to hope that someone in a higher position will give you the time of day and listen to your suggestions.

Opportunity to give back. Owning a business gives you the opportunity to support local charity events, local schools and nonprofit organizations. Being able to make a difference in your community is a great feeling.

Partner with us at Kyusa as we train, inspire and empower youth to become entrepreneurs as a way of gearing them towards becoming key players in the African economy.

Young & Youthful

Being young is unique, it is special, it is exciting. I had an epic time as a young boy; having all the time in the world to worry about sweets and games. I still recall how we competed to identify the steepest hills so we could slide down the slopes in half-cut plastic cans. I did not know until 20 years later that this is when my mind expanded and formed patterns that allow me to make sense of my present day world.

Well, being a youth is a different story; this is the transition phase between dependence and independence. When we form our own hopes, choose our own paths, weave our own dreams, of course, with the promise of the requisite support and framework, we become creatures that thrive on possibilities. Youths and young adults brim with potential and the radiance of knowing that they are growing into something is unmistakable.

Uganda has claimed the title of being ‘The youngest country in Africa’ and is facing daunting challenges of youth unemployment and school drop-out. Reports suggest that the prospects of these groups are at best threatened. Their radiance of growing into something is continually dimmed by elusive opportunities, inadequate skills among others. In the absence of appropriate interventions we risk having a generation whose future is mortgaged by policy failures and malfunctioning education systems.

This is where intervention programs like Kyusa come in. We partner with youths in urban and rural slums to help them create passion-driven sustainable careers through an 8-weeks program. Youths are empowered with employable skills and entrepreneurship skills to solve the lack of economic opportunities.  We know that no country has better possibilities than those of its young population. What is possible for the 12-30 years old youths composing 80% of Uganda’s population is exactly what is possible for Uganda.

No generation is better than its teachers. We welcome you to help us become better teachers to our youth.  

WIN ALREADY!

Do you think and expect defeat? Well, stop and consider! Thinking defeat only brings it up on you rather than take it. Talk positivity to yourself; re-educate yourself; get yourself out of the habit of negative thinking, believe nothing can defeat you. Be a winner at all times.

You are what you think and that is one of the most important facts about yourself. William James stated, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of the mind.” Get rid of your worn out, negative thoughts and become a positive thinker

Trust yourself for you cannot be successful or happy without confidence in your own powers and abilities. It is important to have a positive evaluation of yourself because it greatly determines how much you are to achieve. Thoughts have power. You can think yourself into or out of situations so always endeavor to think positively.

The Kyusa experience is about positivity, looking within oneself and excavating that passion that is deeply buried; it’s about building onto what already exists and affirming it.  Positivity is an aspect of Self management: this is a core aspect of the Kyusa curriculum covering self esteem, self evaluation, self confidence to mention but a few. Please join us on this journey to self discovery. We believe in you!

The Graduate Syndrome

It happens to be graduation week for the main university in Uganda.  Jubilation is in the air, joy in every corner, and traffic on every street as drivers hustle to find their way into the great Makerere University.  Celebrations will go on for a whole week only for most of the graduates to later get in touch with the reality that the market does not have as many slots to employ as many graduates as the universities produce.

With our universities continuing to produce thousands of graduates annually, Uganda whose 78% of the population is below the age of thirty continues to suffer high rates of youth unemployment ranging up to 62% according to Action Aid and 83% according to African Development Bank. Ironically, Uganda has the highest level of entrepreneurship in the world scoring as high as 28.1% according to lioness of Africa Magazine.

The competing unemployment rates raise a lot of questions given the high entrepreneurship rates in the country. Many have attributed it to the fact that most of the enterprises that are started are small and medium enterprises that have the capacity of employing only up to a maximum of three individuals and unfortunately not being able to live up to their third birth. These businesses fail due to many reasons some of which is the fact that most are started as a consequence of failure to attain employment and not out of undying passion.

This Implies an urge to encourage young people to develop passion driven careers and businesses in order to enable them live through the years.This failure has also greatly been attributed to the lack of knowledge on business development such as business planning, promotion basics, start up stimulation and many others. This calls for intervention of the government to amend the formal education curriculum or rather support institutions and organizations that are training young people with this knowledge.

Research by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) shows that 63% of the employers in Uganda are dissatisfied with the graduates that are produced by the higher institutions of learning in Uganda because the graduates do not have the necessary hands on employable skills required to fit in their work environments. Furthermore, the research revealed that skills like professional etiquette, professional writing and many others are often ignored while at universities. It is therefore important to train young people in these soft and employable skills that will enable them strive in the market.

Kyusa looks to empower Out of school youth in urban slums and villages with these employable skills, life skills and entrepreneurship skills including business development in a bid to address lack of economic opportunity by reducing the rate of youth unemployment especially among the out of school youth who have for long been forgotten. We turn their mindsets of hopelessness to hope by encouraging them to take on passion driven careers that are able to earn them a living.

Nurturing Evolution

Affirmation is one of the best gifts that can be given to a girl; it is intangible but produces fruit. To affirm in The Oxford Advanced Learner`s Dictionary `` is to state formally or confidently that something is true or correct.’’

Annet like any other 18 year old desired to be affirmed by her loved ones but all she heard was how worthless and stupid she was and the fact that she will never amount to anything because she didn`t top her class. The family decided her fate by discontinuing her from joining high school after secondary because in their opinion she wasn`t worth the effort.

Her esteem was totally crushed when her mother decided to send her to Kampala to become a house help however an uncle in the city who had heard about Kyusa from a friend decided to give Annet one more chance and enrolled her into kyusa.

She has evolved like a caterpillar into an enthusiastic and confident girl through the 8 week Kyusa program. She has blossomed in her speech and can express herself to others and be heard as every girl`s right to expression in a manner that can be understood. During the 8 week Kyusa program affirmation and communication skills are emphasized to boost the confidence of the participants.

Annet is currently taking hair dressing classes and plans to establish a state of the art saloon back in her village; she intends to offer services to her home town where demand for the hair services is high. She will be one of the very few hairdressers that serve her community.

Finding self is work, yet we are convinced that a better version of Annet’s story is possible for more youths. We seek your partnership in making this exploratory experience possible and pleasant; we implore you to enlist with us in 2016 as we work with 200 youths on a journey of discovery.

We are always glad to hear from you, email us - connect.kyusa@gmail.com