MY REFLECTION MOMENT IN TUNAPANDA.

Intensive training

My journey with Tunapanda began as a trainee in January 2017. I joined Cohort 7 which was a three month’s intensive training in I.C.T. I was very eager to learn new things. The biggest hurdle in the training for me was time. The training program requires that every day you have to report at 9.00am in the morning and leave at 6.30pm in the evening. This was a high-level hurdle for me to overcome. Family issues, challenges, and responsibilities were additional hurdles. I developed a low concentration rate. But, I was very determined to complete the training. I believed that patience, hard work and determination always move mountains.

After the training, I realized that I learned so many things and I refreshed my mind on things I already knew but needed a reminder. The training used teamwork to come up with great ideas. Balancing the ideas of team members was another great opportunity for me. It was not easy to take control of individual ideas and still remain diplomatic with colleagues. But I used this opportunity to guide, discuss and agree on some issues. This is the time I discovered that I had hidden strengths which included leadership, coaching, mentoring and training.

The most important trait I possessed was good social and personal skills. This helped me to talk and socialize with my colleagues and show myself as a confident and competent person in the training. I gleaned leadership abilities, problem-solving skills, and communication skills. These opened my path to an apprenticeship program.

Apprenticeship Memories

Am so grateful for the team that chose me for the apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship program in Tunapanda is a program where apprentices learn the crafts of coaching, teaching, lesson planning, time management, self-management and administering a learning community. This is a program that enhances individual discovered passions by engaging her/him in further practical learning in the identified track of interest. It widens individual creativity, critical thinking, communication, problem-solving and social skills through exposure to new people and ideas.

Working style

Tunapanda team is governed by holacracy. This enabled me to energize some roles in the organization. Among the roles I energized included: Tunapanda team secretary, income controller, Medium writer, coach, trainer, and mentor.

Tunapanda team Secretary- The main aspect of this was to ensure that the team hits its deliverables and enable collaborative lives of purpose through manifesting amazing learning experiences for skill growth, dignity, and problem-solving. This was done through:

1. Increasing team unity
2. Improving visibility and quality of Tunapanda brand
3. Getting financial stability and runway

In increasing team unity, I had an opportunity to participate in various team-building activities like birthday celebrations. I enjoyed my time sharing and interacting with people of different cultures, ages, and even religions.

Photographers: Kevo and Lighare

In improving visibility and quality of Tunapanda brand. The key results included:

• Giving social media metrics (posts, tweets, publications, stars, likes, etc.)
• Identifying the number of local events attended.
• Identifying the number of partners/clients gained through an online presence.
• Identifying articles published on Medium/Linkedin.
• Identifying the number of Swag platform users.

At first, the task was so challenging, later I learned the best method to go about it. We worked together with the circle team members whereby in a meeting we can discuss individual roles on giving metrics. Thanks to Dennis Lighare for your great support. This gave me an opportunity to learn more about how to attract traffic on social media and websites leading to digital marketing strategy.

I appreciate the effort of Eunice Nyandat, Eric Nyandat and Noreen Likimani for mentoring us on branding strategies. Get my medium article “Tunapanda rebranding Journey”.

In getting financial stability and runway, I participated mostly in analyzing the amount of revenue generated and in the pipeline per team member. I worked hard to make the team members understand the finance and knowledge of our financial position through the graphs I used to generate. I always used simple graphs every time to explain how individuals strive to increase our organization’s revenue. Others included:

• Maintaining and tracking the projects in their allocated area.
• Participating in marketing initiatives by developing tools like presentations, publications, etc. and participating in the marketing strategy plan, to define market potential, competitors, market shares, etc.

Writing and communication skills

After taking an initiative to learn more about the communication and writing skills, my group (Cohort 7 apprentices) and I were introduced to Quinton Jefferson. He took us through writing skills: proposal writing, grant writing, resume, Curriculum Vitae, letters, articles, report writing, presentations, and others. He motivated me to start working on medium articles. This was my first medium article. Thanks Quinton. You made me a writing champion and you become my writing role model. Credit to Jay and Mick for your great effort to improve communication and writing skills among the young people. Through Tunapanda many lives of young people have been transformed. Great shout out to Jay and Mick.

Public speaking

I can recall how nervous I was the first time I was asked to speak in the public. I could spend so much time preparing for something to say but seemed to have disappeared the minute I start speaking. I used to sit at the back and never speak unless spoken to. But after the training:

1. I learned how to make a presentation confidently to any audience without feeling awkward or nervous.
2. I learned how to outline a speech or presentation in order to speak easily.
3. I discovered exactly how to meet and exceed the expectations of your audience.
4. I discovered the logical and convincing way to make a presentation in order to speak confidently in the meeting.
5. I discovered the hidden secret of controlling your pacing, breathing and speaking in order to speak smoothly in public.
6. I learned how to maintain the right and appropriate body language for a presentation.
7. I learned how to engage strangers and start building the right networks for a career and life.
8. I learned how to establish and maintain relationships with clients, partners and business stakeholders.

Photographer: Brian Mwevi.

Training, Coaching and Mentoring

Since I Joined the program, I have participated mostly in training, coaching and mentoring young people on how to become lifelong learners, earners and problem solvers. This is the time I enjoyed transferring my knowledge to many young people among them Cohort 8 and 9 trainees whom I taught conflict resolution, finance and accounts, financial projection, how to give and receive effective feedback and the best practices of training, mentoring and coaching. I coached them on business models, entrepreneurship, presentations, photography, digital storytelling, life lessons and motivational lessons. This improved my ability to develop and nurture talents and coach with passion.

Credit to Photographers: Brian Mwevi and Lighare