Hi there, I am Okidi Michka, a young innovator who animates other youth and the community at large to contribute to protecting our lives and saving the planet.
I have been devotedly advocating for climate change. Through participation in life skills and i-UPSHIFT programme at The Recreation Project (TRP) in 2022, I acquired social innovation skills and entrepreneurship skills training. My dedicated team and I were able to identify the problem and gather the root cause for climate change affecting us. Rampant tree cutting was our biggest root cause of climate change. This was possible because people are looking for charcoal and firewood as the main source of energy for cooking and some heating processes and our solution is to provide economical and eco-friendly bio-briquettes from household wastes and farm wastes as the best alternative source of energy for cooking and heating to combat the issue of global warming through tree cutting for charcoal and firewood in our community.
On 17, August 2022, we pitched our solution before over 100 stakeholders, local judges, parents, government officials and adolescents and young upon being confirmed the winner, we received $100 from UNICEF Uganda through TRP as seed capital to allow us to transform our idea into reality. The Resident City Commissioner Hon. Jane Francis Amongi, who was one of the judges during the pitch event, invited us to exhibit our innovative solution at the International Youth Day commemoration on 26, August 2022 before the president of the Republic of Uganda H.E Yoweri Kagutta Museveni at Kaunda grounds in Gulu City. Then, our idea was also presented in the global competition Generation Unlimited Youth Challenges 2023 where we won and our success was announced during the COP27 in November 2022. We were very proud to represent Uganda among other winning teams representing 11 countries. After that, we were invited to join the global acceleration programme.
The 9th of September 2023 marked a special day as I embarked on a journey to Jordan, Amman for the Global Incubation Workshop co-hosted by ImaGen Ventures, Generation Unlimited and UNICEF Jordan. I had the pleasure of flying for around six hours, the flight was two ways from Entebbe International Airport (Uganda) to Bole International Airport (Ethiopia) and finally to Queen Alia International Airport Jordan (Amman). The journey itself was contentment as the Ethiopian Airline was huge enough to occupy numerous passengers taking through the beautiful physical features and infrastructure developments on earth.
During the workshop, the UNICEF team supported me and my team members in building various skills and competencies in social innovation and entrepreneurship. I had a wonderful opportunity to interact with young people from other global winning teams invited to this workshop, as well as successful entrepreneurs who enabled me to obtain further incubation support to advance my social innovation initiative. During the training, I had the chance to learn more about business education where they taught me the following crucial knowledge about building a business e.g.
- Making an idea into a scalable business
- Market and product validation
- Prototype and designing
- Brand building
- Design thinking
They gave me the idea that people don’t buy products anymore but they buy experiences that are meaningful, and realistic to them. Mentors from Jordan Start and Tech Work CPF guided me on building one or more sustainable development goals (SDGs) type goals into the business models to attract a larger investor universe.
I used to be afraid of change because I felt I would lose my identity, or I would forget where I came from. Then I realised that we aren’t working, it's hard to stay the same. Embrace change in my life. Every time I let go of something I end up learning and having something much greater, God has a way of testing that faith.
I am happy and grateful for this opportunity and I am looking forward to a bright future. If you are failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. The best preparation for tomorrow is to do your best today! So believe it, dream it and achieve it.
The way I think has been different lately, how I react to things has also changed. How I speak to myself, who I allow proximity to, who I try to train to gain proximity from and the way I show love to my loved ones.
Now this is the question that I ask so many aspiring entrepreneurs and traders around the world
“Are you part of the problem? Or part of the solution? Where are you putting your focus?”
Remember, whatever we focus on grows so if we focus on problems will grow and problems we will always have, but if we focus on solutions, then solutions will grow into success and solutions we will always have. I stopped worrying about the things that happened or could happen to me a long time ago and started thinking about how I could twist the things that happened into positives. I suggest you do the same, life will get that much easier to enjoy.
Besides that, Jordan is rich in various spicy foods. At Kempinski Hotel, Shams Almodenah I ate local Jordanian food and at a Lebanese restaurant where I had a delicious lunch on my trip to tour the Amman Citadel and Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman.
My message to inspire my fellow young youth and adolescents is to build resilience through success and failure, be a magnet that draws opportunity, and paint brilliant thoughts and actions that will be deeply satisfying and rewarding.
Lastly, discipline can fix 80% of your problems. Discipline allowed me to learn a skill set that no one can take away.
