On Digital Skilling of Slum Communities Youth - A Conversation with Emmanuel Trinity Nsaabanye

Episode Transcript

Claire  00:11

Hello dear listeners and welcome to The Narratives of Purpose, you are now tuned into a new episode showcasing unique stories of changemakers of people who are contributing to make a difference in society. This show was created to amplify social impact by sharing individual journeys of ordinary people who I believe are making extraordinary impact within their communities and around the world. My name is Claire Murigande and I am your host on this podcast. If you are looking for inspiration and want to take action, then look no further. You are in the right place, get comfortable and listen to my conversations.

 

Claire  00:59

We are back for a new season of our show. This is season number four. We have a lineup of amazing guests and a few surprise episodes to come, so stay tuned for that. Today's episode features Emmanuel Nsaabanye, better known as Trinity Heavens, that was his stage name and I will refer to him as Trinity. So Trinity is the founder of Era 92 Creative which is a design agency based in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Era 92 commits its profits to invest in youth talents from slum communities around the country. As a social entrepreneur, Trinity is on a mission to create 10,000 jobs for young Africans by 2030. In this discussion, Trinity shares with me his passion for upskilling the next generation of talents in preparation for jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities on the continent. I invite you to take a moment and share your feedback on our podcast by giving us a review on Apple podcasts. This will help other listeners find our show and further amplify the stories we bring on The Narratives of Purpose. You might also want to sign up for our monthly newsletters, so you can stay informed firsthand about all our activities and get previews of upcoming guests. Simply head to our website at narratives-of-purpose.podcastpage.io - But for now, let's get into the conversation with Trinity.

 

Claire  02:37

Good morning, Trinity, a very warm welcome to The Narratives of Purpose. First things first, why don't you introduce yourself and share a few words of your background to our listeners? What would you like them to know about you?

 

Trinity  02:48

My name is Trinity, I am  known by Trinity, but my full name is Emmanuel Nsaabanye, and then I added Trinity. I ended up in one of the worst slums at the age of three months, when my mum was abused, and when she got pregnant, her parents denied her because of the child she had conceived without a father, and also the father at that particular time, didn't want to do anything with the child. He didn't want to take responsibility. So I ended up in the slums. I got rescued from the slums of the streets, I was given a computer, and from that computer trained myself to become a designer, which helped me overcome the streets. I got a job and I decided, I'm the only one who has a job in the slums. So I quit my job, I went back to start Era 92 because I was born in 1992 and the reason why the year is important for me, because I was sure with all the things I've gone through I would be dead by now. And so I'm alive because of a purpose. And I'm ready to use my time over here to make a difference in the lives of young people across Africa.

 

Claire  03:56

So tell me about Era 92. You told me you're a designer and from what I've gathered, it's a creative design company. Tell me first of all, how did you put that together? Who are you working with, and then we can go further on how you're helping the youth build up their skills as well.

 

Trinity  04:11

As I mentioned to you, at the age of nine, I was part of a gang that I was recruited into as a young boy. And I was recruited to do all sorts of things, drugs, and also deals. Because at that age, no one would expect a young boy like me to be harmful to them. But we were harmful. And so during that time when I was part of these gangs, we lost so many of my friends due to gangs, and fights that were happening across the slums. Actually, the slum that I was born into was called Kosovo. I don't know if you know about Kosovo, but that's not the Kosovo I'm talking about. This is a Kosovo in Uganda, but it was named after the original Kosovo because of the killings and the fighting that was happening. So it was a very, very bad area. I was lucky enough that the four years that I spent on the streets, it did not lose my life. But many of my friends did lose their lives. And so one day, I was rescued by a group of missionaries who had come to start the school for neglected abused street children. And that school was called Treasured Kids. So during that time when they picked us up the streets, we tried to run away because we were wild kids. But one of the ladies in that group asked me, "Hey, Emmanuel, what's one thing that we can give you so that you never go back on the streets, so that you can ditch the things that you're doing?" So I knew exactly what I was going to ask for. I said I wanted a computer, and these ladies called Jennifer and Roberta, they were true to their word, they gave me a computer the next day. Then they invited me to the church, and I started engaging with those activities. And I started engaging less and less in the street gangs that I was part of. And that started actually providing me with the opportunity to train with a computer that had. The church had the internet. And so, so many things started to happen. So I started training myself to become a designer. I started the media department in that church, where we were doing the worship things, the branding for the church, and I designed their logo. And so I used all the skills to become better every single day. Until I was discovered by Coca Cola at the age of 17. Through a Coca Cola company that was running through the slums, where they were looking for talent. So I presented my poster that I had designed for Coca Cola and a mockup poster. One of the marketing managers saw it and they picked me out. And they said, "Are you up for an internship at one of our advertising agencies?" I said, "why not?" So they offered me that opportunity where I could go train, but also earn money. And that job made a huge difference in my life, because right now I was working, I left the slums, I was working in a corporate world, and I was earning enough money to put myself back to school, but also help my mom. And when that happened, it was not a story for many young people in my slams, and I started reflecting on how many young people actually lost their lives. But in reflection of that, I realised that actually, all these kids that are dying in the slums it's not that they're not smart. I knew so many of my friends were smarter than I was, who were more talented than I was, and they ended up becoming nothing or ended up in the grave. And so that started to become something that I never wanted to see anymore. And I wanted to do something about it. But in theory, I never wanted to do another charity, because of what charities do. They come, they give us food on the streets, they give you clothes, they take pictures, and they go. So I wanted to provide a long lasting solution to that problem because one thing I believed in during that time was that brilliance was equally distributed for all these young people, but opportunity was not. And so I reflected on how my life transformed, and I realised if I could replicate this model onto other young people, maybe I could form a campaign around it. So one day, I quit my job, I met a girl called Megan, I asked her "Could you join my programme?" and I started with four young girls, with a mission to give them the skills they need, but also eventually find them employment opportunities. So Megan was my first employee and another two boys. And that's how we started a company. So the idea of what we do is we train these young people we also send into the world, that is not just a programme of just skilling people. If we skill you, then we'll also employ you to deliver that service to companies around the world. So that's our model.

 

Claire  06:13

You said that you're offering your services to different companies? What type of services are they? And to what sort of companies, without naming names, perhaps you have your own clients. But just give us an idea?

 

Trinity  08:57

Yeah. So when we started out, there was a problem in the marketplace, because, if you are going to start a social enterprise you have to keep in mind that you're not a charity, you're actually a business that has a responsibility to make the community better. And so for us, we found out that charities actually struggled to tell their stories, struggle to communicate, they don't have big budgets to run big media campaigns, they don't have enough budgets to hire graphic designers in house to hire a photographer in house. And so we realised that actually, can we model this thing into one package - a retainer package - so that nonprofits around the world can just pay one flat rate and you access all the services, so we work with nonprofits around the world and social enterprises. We provide unlimited subscriptions, you sign up to get video graphics, reporting and stuff like that on one flat rate. So any nonprofit out there doesn't need to hire any of those people full time, because Era 92 becomes an extension of your team just in Uganda. So that's the model we are doing right now. And we have at least 15 retainer clients of international development organisations.

 

Claire  10:16

So the other thing that I saw when I was browsing your website is that all your profits are then committed to upskill the youth talents in the slums? How do you recruit them? Or how do you spot these talents? Tell me more about that.

 

Trinity  10:34

When we started out, I started out by training them myself in one room. And that was time consuming, that was hard. So when we reached about 40 people, we had to do a different programme. So we started Era 92 Elevate. So we have Era 92 Creative and we have another arm called Era 92 Elevate. So Elevate is an academy that identifies young people from underserved communities  - slums. We pick them from those communities, and then bring them to our centre with an idea to spend one year with us. So young people spend an intensive one year with us where they learn different skills that they aspire to use, we do not impose these skills on them. So if someone comes and they want to do graphics, that's what they do. If someone wants to do website development, that's what they do. After that one year of intensive work, we then place them into places of internship. And the idea is that some of them actually come to our company right now to Era 92 creative. Next week, we are having a graduation of 300 young people. And at least 10/15 of those are going to come here and intern with us. So the model is simple. We identify skill, place, and finance. The last bit of our model is financing. So recently, we started running Era 92 Fund, which is like a microfinance, providing asset financing for young people who want to start their careers in business, careers in freelancing and stuff like that. So we offer them a computer and then pay them, offer them a camera and then they pay that as they grow their business. So that's the model. And the idea is for us to create 10,000 skilled jobs in the next five years. And so we'll be using those three avenues of Era 92 Creative, Era 92 Elevate and Era 92 Fund to be able to achieve those jobs.

 

Claire  12:28

And speaking about impact, you say that your ambition, or your mission is to skill 10,000 young Africans by 2030? How far have you reached from that ambition?

 

Trinity  12:38

You know, in life, we prepare ourselves for just one moment like this, right? You can be working as a software engineer just for one day when you're going to hit that opportunity. So for us, over the years, we've worked with over 1500 Young people, so we've been able to create over 1500 skilled jobs. But that has taken us seven years. Right. And that's a long time because we've been trying to figure out the model and stuff like that. But now that we know we have the model, then it's gonna be faster. So right now, within the next year, our goal is to create one thousand skilled jobs, you know, that's almost 90% of what we've been able to do in seven years in just one year. So what does that mean? Because right now we have a model, we have invented what we call the Elevate Booth. The Elevate Booth is a digital classroom that is put into a shipping container right now. So we put computers into that room, we cut a 40 foot container, divided it into two and then we have a space for about 20/25 computers. We ship that thing to a designated area, and that area may be where young people do not have access to phones, internet and stuff like that. So the idea is to break that barrier that young people in those areas can also access these digital skills, opportunities on the internet and stuff like that. So we are planning to place at least 15 Digital classrooms in the next two years. And each classroom cost $25,000. But the idea that we'll be able to scale at least across 15 districts in Uganda, each and every one of them will be at least working with 2000 young people every three years. So that means that in those years, we'll be able to make that impact and even more of that. So we are super, super, super excited about that.

 

Claire  14:29

You mentioned the 15 districts in Uganda. Is your plan to also expand and go outside of Uganda.

 

Trinity  14:37

Yes, if you look at our mission on the website, yes, definitely! We already have establishments to go to Kenya Kibera slums. So we are going to Kibera slums because our work is centred around slum communities and underserved communities. So we already have partners in Kibera and Mathare and then from there, we believe that it will have the momentum for the programme and then take it across Africa.

 

Claire  15:03

Another question I wanted to ask you about impact is that 70% of those that you are working with are girls in underserved communities? Is that intentional?

 

Trinity  15:12

I think so. I think so, when I looked around the community, the most vulnerable demographic was the young girls. And the way I started the company was actually centred around this story that I heard. So you remember I mentioned about Megan, by the time I found Megan was already selling her body because the dad who was taking care of the family had broken his spinal cord, and this girl, who was 18 years old, she was the one left with the responsibility to take care of the family. And what does that mean, she had to sell her body to raise $2 a day to provide meals. And so I thought that was wrong. And so my heart drifted towards how can you help more young girls not end up in this endangered situation? And so that's how it started. So Megan became an advocate for so many young girls in the slums, because right now she's working with us over those years, she has a department of at least five other people working under her. And she has had a lot of influence in bringing other girls into the programme. And so maybe that has contributed hugely to why 70%. But also, it's hard to work with boys, especially when they're on drugs and stuff like that. So we have a lot of young boys who fall out of the programme come back and stuff like that.

 

Claire  16:40

One question I had, and most of the time on this show, I speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, many of them also social entrepreneurs. What was for you, or what continues to be a challenge at this point, that has been quite difficult for you to overcome, but you managed to do it anyway?

 

Trinity  16:54

One of the biggest challenges is the mindset of the type of clients that you want to work with. Our target audience is the people in the West, the clients in the West, you know, UK, US. So there's been a type of challenge with a mindset shift, when you tell someone that your website is gonna be done in Africa, there are some cold feet over there. They say "This is gonna be a good one, right?" But to anyone who is listening, if you are in the West, anywhere around the world, for anyone who has been working in Africa, right now, it has to be about unlocking the potential that is underlying, in the lives of young people in the places that you heard of. And if you go to any community, that would be the solution that you bring. So many people couldn't look at us as a resource, they look at us as a place where they could send aid, I think that was very, very challenging. And so that's a thing that I've been struggling with, that I'm struggling with, but I've been able to achieve. So I have this new phrase called The New Africa. So every time I go out to travel in the US in the UK, I speak from the point of The New Africa, and how the West can actually interact with Africa right now. And so that has opened up conversations, because there are some people who are also tired of aid, right? So we have campaigns like "Give work, not aid" instead of giving us aid. Why don't you give us work from your company? It's ongoing, we need to put in a lot of work, because even some Africans are still looking for charity. But that is a group of people like us who just want partnerships, investments, work jobs to come to Africa, because that's gonna be the underlying point for us to break through this vicious cycle of poverty is through putting money into people's pockets. You know, some of the times I asked the simple question, why are people poor? And I say, maybe they don't have money? Yes, they don't have money. But where does the money come from?

 

Claire  19:06

So we spoke about challenges. But for you, what is the biggest learning or what do you take out from the journey so far?

 

Trinity  19:13

Some of the things that blow my mind is how much talent is really there, and how much that we've been able to discover. Recently, a young boy is just 19 years old. And I don't know where he came from. But this boy is smart. He just blows my mind. He's so smart. He's into coding and stuff like that. He's been part of the group programme for eight months and he has worked his way up. And for me, when I see things like this one thing I come to believe, like, you know, Africa can become the next big global powerhouse. But we just have to tap into this untapped potential. And for me, that's still my unveiling learnings every single day. And if we focus on that potential I think we can become the global powerhouse that we are supposed to be in the next 20 years. And so that's one of my learnings. But also, I've also learned that the world can get beyond better. And social entrepreneurship proves it's true. And so for me the impact that I've been able to have, if we have millions of other social entrepreneurs like me, a lot can be done, a lot can be solved. I would say that social entrepreneurship works. And we need more of those people. It's a very scary space to enter. It's attractive, but it's very scary. But I would encourage anyone to be part of this new revolution.

 

Claire  20:38

I'm curious to know now, it could be also an outlook in the future, but also how you see the situation at this point. You're identifying these young people who unfortunately don't have the right conditions, because they live in slums. But are there other things that you see that can be done? And what would that be?

 

Trinity  20:55

Yeah, the first thing I think we have to do is that we have to throw ourselves back at education, but not the education that we've been having for over 60 years of colonialism and stuff like that. This time, it has to be skill based education, and also education that is based on what is happening in the world, and also future skills. Because at the end of the day, right now, what we see is that maybe the world, the West can also start looking at Africa as an outsourcing area, like they look at India and China. But maybe if you come, maybe they will not get all the potential or the talent they need, because some of them are not yet skilled enough. They're not levelled up, right? So what we need to do as Africans, as we're going into, we need to really level our ground at this stage so that we can now be able to get these fruits that are really low hanging. When you look at the West right now, people are ageing, everywhere you go, there's not enough people, because most of them are just ageing, retiring and stuff like that. So Africa is going to be the answer for all of that. But as they have a problem, we have a problem. And our problem is how can we accelerate the education that is relevant, and is preparing people for the workforce and the opportunities that are available right now? I think that's gonna be the first thing. And so that's going to be the government, the private sector, and any individual that is listening in.

 

Claire  22:31

So we're getting to the end of the conversation, if there's anything you want to add that we didn't mention, you know, just go ahead.

 

Trinity  22:39

We've mentioned a lot but I always call people to join us on this movement. And the way to do that is partnership, you can come and give us work, you can come and train up young people, volunteer with us, in Uganda at our academy, you can come and you know, give your skills, you can buy our services on our website, all that stuff. So, anyone who is listening out there, you know, if you think about Africa right now, I would love for you to think about bringing your business, your talent to Africa. There is a lot of untapped potential here.

 

Claire  23:19

Thank you for being part of the show. And I hope that we'll be able through The Narratives of Purpose podcast to amplify your voice a bit further and bring more attention but also bring more awareness to people.

 

Trinity  23:31

You're welcome. Thank you to me for, you know, amplifying these voices. God bless you.

 

Claire  23:45

Building brands for clients while building the lives of young people through upskilling and empowerment is most certainly an impactful way to change the narrative, creating awareness of the untapped potential of youth in underprivileged communities across the continent. And I definitely like The New Africa movement that Trinity described in this conversation. You can learn more about Era 92 on their website at era92creative.com. You can also connect with Trinity on Instagram and LinkedIn. Just look up Trinity Heavenz spelled with a Z at the end. We have all these links for you, the website and the social handles in the show notes. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I appreciate your taking the time. That was episode 39 A Conversation with Trinity Heavenz on digital skilling of slum communities youth. Be sure to share this episode within your network and with your friends, if you like it. We would love to read your feedback about our show on Apple podcasts, or get your rating on Spotify. You can also connect with us through our social handles. You will find all the links on the website at narratives-of-purpose.podcastpage.io. Until the next episode, take care of yourself, stay well and stay inspired!

 

This podcast was produced by Tom at rustic studios.