MY STORY, MY INSPIRATION

My name is Chrispine Odhiambo Sewe, 26 years of age. I am from Siaya County, a lastborn in a family of six. I sat for my KCSE exams in 2014. My life after high school was not easy seeing that my dad passed on when I was young and throughout my schooling, my elder brother had to be the breadwinner for the whole family, which was an easy thing for him to handle.

Having attained a B-(minus) in my secondary school, I was so much excited at the thought of joining University to proceed with my education, but that was all it was; a thought. Due to lack of finances, my family could not afford to send me to the university, so I had to start hustling so that I could increase the income my family was getting.

I was not choosy when it came to work, so when the opportunity presented itself, I joined the jua kali sector in the year 2015. I faced many challenges working in the Jua Kali sector but I did not give up. In 2016, I was relieved when I got a call from a certain man asking me to go and help him with his business. The business he was doing was that of branding for schools during the form one intakes. I joined him despite not knowing a thing about branding, but I was willing to learn. During the whole process, I came to realize that the branding business that is also called screen-printing was a very profitable business.

In 2017, I met a friend of mine who was a teacher and I sold him the idea of starting a branding business which after much consideration he agreed, this saw him become the boss of me since he was the one providing the materials and tools needed to run the business.

I continued with the branding business but we always encountered one challenge, which was making of the screens. So I would make all types of logos ordered by the clients but instead would send them to Kisumu for printing of the screen at a cost of ksh 1,500 per screen. It always bothered me that we had to incur all that cost.

As days went by, I started to pressure my boss into learning what was entailed in the screen printing process. I pointed out the fact that we were spending too much on screen-printing but he said that the time would come.

One day, we got a visit from a client; I would say he was God- sent. The client wanted us to print some t-shirts foe him and he actually gave us a deadline of 2 days. Seeing that we did not print the screens for ourselves, we requested him for some additional time and he agreed. When he came back in a few days, he was very happy to find his T-Shirts ready and he said that one day he would repay us for our good work.

The client called my boss and told him that he had found a place one could train in screen-printing and that he wanted to sponsor one person to go to school and learn the whole course. God is faithful, because I was chosen among many and when I was told to go back to school, I was happy and glad at the opportunity to go and enhance on my skills. That is how I found myself at Sensei Institute of Technology.

I want to appreciate my teachers Mr Collins and Madam Phyllis for making sure I have acquired the necessary skills to jump into the job market. I am now capable of solving the problem my boss had and I can comfortably start my own business if I acquire my own tools and equipment. I want thank the whole Sensei Institute at large for making my stay here comfortable. I would also want to encourage each young person that they should never work to earn, but should work smart and work to be the best and also to never give up .

MAY THE ALMIGHTY GOD BLESS YOU!!!