 I am a big advocate of tourism in Africa, but there are people in Africa that are taking this to another level. And as that guy who is on a journey to celebrate every single African, I think this guy right here needs to be celebrated. This guy right here's story needs to be heard by many Africans living in Africa and abroad. Do me a favor, like this video now. Can I get 100,000 likes for this video? Thank you, you are amazing for liking this video. But hey, if today is your first time seeing this annoying face on your screen, do me a favor, subscribe and be part of this awesome channel. You know what? Like when I'm in the spirit like this, I feel like singing that song. When I came to Uganda, I had no idea of the existence of Amos Wakesa. But as soon as I posted that I want to meet entrepreneurs in this beautiful country, majority of the people said we need to hear the story of Amos Wakesa. Believe me or not, his journey really represented the rocks to riches story. This guy was born in abject poverty. I remember my first ride in the car, so I had never put on shoes. What my mother used to dress on as a gourmet is what we covered ourselves as kids. And we slept under the grass-thorched house. So for the first time I sat in the car in 1983 and the car starts moving. So in my head I thought the trees were moving. I don't understand. So extreme was the poverty that the mum nearly killed him. When I started doing business, I think it's about for five, six years. Every time my mother looked at me, she could shed tears. It's only until five or six years ago that she opened up what she used to shed tears. When I was born she was so poor that she contemplated killing me. So she planned to kill me on a Friday and it was a Thursday because not because she didn't like me but because the conditions were extremely very difficult for her. She still cries up now and she sees me. But if you are born to be great, not even poverty will be the hindrance. Imagine being born in poverty and now being the owner, the CEO, the founder of four different resorts in Uganda. One in Tanzania and he's building the fifth one in Uganda. That's not the only thing that he's into but this same guy is into agro-processing. Do you know the company called Pella Commodities? He's the guy behind it. He's adding value to grains in Uganda by processing them. And at the end of the day the guy who never had food those days is feeding his own people. But because I've not eaten meat for a year, I'm a young man. I go and serve myself that day. Most of the time I thought when you're poor you look older, you look even when you're a young man. So I looked older and I went and served myself that night and I remember walking home and God is my witness. I cried. I cried and said, God, why did you make me so poor? That even meat is such an important thing. And that night I made another renew of my life to say, if I get a chance I am still going to work so hard. And I think if you'd asked me my dreams and papa's that day, I'd have told you I'm going to work so hard and I will eat a lot of meat. Poverty is really a bastard to the extent that people like Amos had a dream of eating more meat. But yeah, yeah, Amos has been eating a lot of meat. I saw him and I can testify to that. That is not the only thing Amos is enjoying right now. You see this boat right here? This belongs to Amos and loves you both. And I wish I would exchange that for the meat. Personally, I feel like Amos Wakesa is the pioneer of tourism in Uganda and I hope and believe that someday the government will appoint him as a tourism ambassador from Uganda to the world. But I also want to say I am so grateful to God that He made me Uganda. I love my country. The last many years I've been flying, you can never find me on a plane without Uganda on my chest. Even my winter jackets are tailor-made to tell everybody I'm Uganda. I read on the internet, people complain about the car you drive, people complain about the way you dress. Have you seen those things now? Yeah. But many people don't understand is that I am breaking a chain of poverty. When you're the one breaking a chain of poverty, your responsibility is different from my child. My responsibility is different from my child. I have to be very careful what I do with what I have. But also they look as a person, a car is just something that moves me from A to B. You know what? I don't want to talk too much because his story is long and I want to go with the flow. Listen, in this video I'll be so quiet for you to grab a child water and enjoy the conversation. My name is Wakesa. Wakesa of course means you're born during harvest. So among our tribe we have the circumcision initiation. So at the age of 17, you're supposed to be initiated into manhood. And then it's every evening. Then the next year, Odea, you're supposed to get married. So at the age of 18, you're supposed to get married. So at the age of 18, I got circumcised in 1990, December 12th. So they expected me in 1990 to want to get married. But I come from an extreme object of it. I remember my mother saying, you get a wife and a child and leave them at home. Now don't forget, when I was 17 years old, I was just going to S1. I was born in 1973 during Odea mainstream. But during Odea mainstream, every person of my age has a fairly similar story. Poverty was the in thing. So my parents were extremely very poor, very, very, very poor. And so I had not gone to school until 1983. So in 1983, an organisation called Savashina Mouse, 10 years old, went to look for poorest kids, different villages across the country. In my village, they wanted to pick two guys. And in my home, in each home, they wanted to pick one guy. So I happened, when God is on your side, things work in a very miraculous way. So I was the only boy in the home and the less were girls. So they picked me at the age of 10. I remember my first ride in the car, so I had never put on shoes. What my mother used to dress on as a gourmet is what we covered ourselves as kids. And we slept under the grass-touched house. That we had more grass on the side of the parents. And also, of course, my family line was also hard issues. My mother got a first born from a different guy, second born from a different guy, third born me from a different guy, fourth from a different guy. So that is the challenge now. That also compounded poverty because you have so many families involved in one family and you're all poor. So even the little that they used to smuggle, and my mom used to smuggle and bring home, she always wanted to try and please the kids out more than us because she's not staying with us at the time. So that really compounded poverty. So 93, this organization, I say, it's okay, you come to Tororo. Tororo is about 70 kilometers away from my village. And I remember we had to go 15 kilometers to where the first, the only mean pickup that goes to Bari town was about 40 kilometers. So for the first time I sit in the car in 1983. And the car starts moving. So in my head, I thought the trees were moving. I don't understand. So man, I was just like a kid of 10 years and I thought it's very vivid in my head. And for 70 kilometers, we traveled, we left at 5 a.m. to walk that place. We think we reached about three hours of the walk for the 15 kilometers. But we arrived the children's home. It's a home of less advantage kids. At about 6.30 p.m. So when we arrived, it's a big dormitory. And a five-year-old guy comes and touches the wall and light comes on. Ah, man, I was shocked, man. I've never seen this kind of things. So I wait for the guy to go out and I touch the wall and light goes off, man. I take off, I'm like, man, should they find out I'm the guy. I was just scared because I'm from the village. I have no understanding what's happening. The environment is different. They took me, so the home had a nursery school. So I had to, at the age of 10, they took me to a nursery school. I remember going to, for primary, one interview in a school, Kolo Guti Primary School in Toro. It's not far from Bali. And the mother thought I was too, said you're too old. They just had to take me to primary school. So primary school, I was, I really liked school. So I go to S1. At S1, I was 17 years old. My hormones were working. I was really confused. So I started deteriorating. Every year I just became worse, you know. I started well. I think at the first term, I was like number two, number three. So by the time I did S4, I barely got, you know, just that second grade to take you to S5. So I go to S6. But through school, I did sports, a lot of sports. I did a lot of scouting, a lot of debating. Now a lot of people don't understand that school is not just about the academics. And today people don't understand that when you do sports, you learn how to win, you learn how to lose. When you do leadership in school, it teaches you and prepares you for the future. Even my own children, I engage in all types of activities. In fact, for me, I look for school fast not because of the grades. I look for school for my children fast because of the extra curricular activities. So for me, that creates character. And I also encourage them to take up leadership so that I'm also in a bit of leadership. In their schools, because that's what they're gonna need more than simply the academics. They go to international school because I didn't go there. They have a much better life than I do. It's very difficult to explain to my 11-year-old that at his age, I was in primary two. So he doesn't understand that bit. So for me, sooner than I went in, I was a leader still, still the same stuff. But I failed my levels. I was one of the worst performers among the leaders. I was the worst performer of the leaders. I was actually a written off. So 1996, May, I'm 23 years old. First, I'm old for the salvation of my children's home. But two have performed badly. So I remember very well, first week of May, I prayed to God and I said, God, you gave me a chance and I wasted my chance. I said, God, should you give me a second chance in life, I am going to work so, so, so hard. Because he had done on me that no institution can take me on, nothing. But then I'm not in need of help, but I also know the poverty back in my village. So on 22nd of May, 1996, a Canadian doctor was working with the Toronto hospital. Come home and say, take that guy to Kampala to study course in tourism. That's how I ended up in Kampala in 1996, September. But as a young man, I knew my weaknesses. I knew, like in a young man, I needed to find a group of people that, one, have similar mindset like mine. But two, people are to compound my faith. So as a Christian, I needed that. Such that it helps me not divert from the dreams that God has set out for me. So I started going to, I find a place called TJF, thank God it's a Friday, run by Baptiste and Center. So every Friday I used to make popcorns, clean the chairs, so I became a leader through doing those kind of things, volunteering. So every Friday I used to go there. So it helped me with my faith a lot. But at the same time, a lot of people who had similar backgrounds. So it was easier for me to now start learning the city from through them. So I did my course for nine months, a certificate and I did extremely well. Because you know, I had committed myself and made a mistake and all of us in life. I think that's why the Bible says we've all run short of the grace. So we all have the potential of bad and good. But I'd learned from school. If you join a group of 10 fools, you become automatically eventful. That's how life works. But if you join a group of 10 brilliant, hardworking, ambitious people, chances of them lifting you up are much higher. Chances of you being challenged to do things differently are much higher. But also don't forget now in the village at the age of 18, I'm just going to S1, people are putting me under pressure to get married. I refused because I knew however beautiful a woman is, no woman eats love, they all eat food. So you have to have, you have to have, there is so much to do that. But also I also knew where I'm coming from. And I only knew that I am going to marry. To be honest, I think if I hadn't succeeded in trying to get out of poverty, I would have probably not married. Because I would have not wanted to take my, subject my children to what I went through. I understand poverty. I have fast-hand experience with poverty. I know what it means. Poverty is very demeaning. It's nothing good about poverty. I don't even think people are going to heaven because they are poor. I don't believe so. It's just a bad thing. What did poverty do to you? Man. So in this service, I met children's home. Life was extremely very difficult. When we were born, we hardly ate anything that was, I hardly ate chicken. I would tell the people when I came to Kampala, I went to Islam. The funny thing is that I was in a slum room paying about just less than two dollars a month. That's what I was paying. I heard this landlady. The landlady from hell. Two advantages. There was two signs of this landlady from hell. Just this lady would go and drink for me and come at 3 a.m. and tell me how I was poor until morning. But I've never understood how I have had that patience. I don't have that patience today. So I finished a whole year without eating meat. So I put on my Sunday best and I go and sit in the back. I have no idea who was waiting that because they're waiting every Saturday. I sat in the back, little did I know that other kids from the slum had similar vision. So they came and also sat. They came and chased everybody on my right, everyone on my left. But because I had not eaten meat for a year, so I'm a young man. I go and serve myself that day. It must have thought I was, when you're poor, you look older. You look, even when you're a young man. So I looked older. And I went and served myself that night. And I remember walking home and God is my witness, I cried. I cried and said, God, why did you make me so poor? But even meat is such an important thing. And that night I made another renew of my life to say, if I get a chance, I am still gonna work so hard. And I think if you'd asked me my dreams and papa's that day, I would have told you I'm going to work so hard and I would eat a lot of meat. So I looked for my first job. And after 97, I looked for my first job. It was nine months course. So I became an office nurse, a cleaner with a company called Bellix at Sheraton. They had an office there, so I would clean. I was, and I was earning $10 a month. I was living in a slum. And those times, I never used to use a car, like public transport boats. It was just normal. So if I wanted to walk 20 kilometers, I just see maybe to take me another three hours. Then I just walk. That was my normal life. I never used to question it. But of course it was also hard because I went to school, a good school, for my early levels, paid by Salvation Army. Most of my classmates went to university. To be honest, it was one of the toughest times. Finding my former schoolmates and trying to say hello. Some of them would see me from far and across the road. After one year, I was a support team to move on. One thing I discovered about life is that when you have done your best in a small job you've been given, the voice will be clear. That it's time to move on. But if you go to a job and complain, you will not hear that voice. If you sit there and you're not doing your best and complain about money, then it becomes a problem. Now, of course at that time, I used to have two males. There's a lady who used to make me what they called cartogog beans and, I don't know, they've eaten it in Uganda. It's beans and cassava. So she would make for me that and I'd go home, I'd boil, take three quarters of the water, take a quarter with water in the morning. Three in the evening, then I'd leave a quarter for breakfast. That was my life, from Monday to Monday. Because I couldn't afford anything. Finish my first job as a cleaner, go look for my second job, and I become an office messenger. So an office messenger with no safaris or take things, the post office. But it was a tour company. All these are our tour companies. Until only one day, when every tour guide had gone away and we had a group of young English people from an organization called the World Challenge out of the UK, there were 22 of them. And so they asked me to be the guide. I went and read overnight. I didn't even know where to go much in Forze National Park. I didn't know the route. The friend of mine gave me a map. I took this guy through the trip. And there were two guys I found on the street. I somehow have ability to engage with people on the streets. The African-Americans had come to see the president. So he was taken not far from my office. So I engaged him and I told him to come on the trip. When we went to that trip and finished, these guys could not believe that it was my first time to be a tour guide. African-American. No, the English people. And the African-Americans had come to see the president. So they come to our office after two days of the trip. They brought me a very big cake. And they brought me a tie that I was supposed to give the president of Uganda. Do you know what that spoke? That spoke a message to me. It showed me where I am supposed to be. I'm supposed to be a tour guide. I'm supposed to be in tourism. So I was like, an office messenger. Now my salary had gone to about $15 a month. So of course I left and I looked for my another job. After one year, I knew that I could not go. You can also tell in an organization that you never go from the lower point to the higher point. Most I try to elevate people within the businesses. But there are businesses you know that you have a limit. You will never be anything else. People don't appreciate who you are. So I looked for my third job and I became a tour guide. That's when I discovered my gift. So I started guiding the Dutch trip when I was earning $1 a day. And God is my witness. My first trip was doing camping trip. And I guided these guys for 15 days. And my boss gave me $1,000 and she goes, oh man, I was sat in the car, I cried, I said, man, after 15 days. So and I think the last day we had bought watermelon from Lake Buñon, I don't know if you went to Lake Buñon. We were coming towards Zimbabra. There's a 40 motel, there's a motel 20 kilometers from Barra town. So we put this watermelon and give them to to guys to cut them. And they told us, ask my boss and say, why don't you give these guys anything for cutting this watermelon? Guy says, I'm not saying he's a Dutch guy, not some of my favorite people in the world are Dutch people. But this particular guy was something else. But I must also appreciate, I always tell him now, that I appreciate him for having taken me through that experience. Because without it, without that experience, I would have never moved in my life. So I remember very well him saying that, you see that guy, I am paying him almost nothing, but he can never do better than this in his life. That day I stood up and I said, but in my life, I will never, ever work for you again. And I kind of promise you, I don't know where the courage came from in front of tourists. I will never, ever be poor again. And I'm leaving you today and I will never work for you again. I'm just tired of the same stories. The tourists were shocked. They knew I was poor. I said, no, I now have knowledge. I'm not poor anymore. I knew my gift. I knew I was good with tourists, with tourism as a subject. So I went and looked for my last job, where I became a Dutch guy. This time I was earning $150,000. It was like $35, $45 a month. But of course, a time, of course, then people sat in the village hearing, oh, this guy has gotten a job. Now, to them, they thought I was earning. I'm working tourist. I'm earning so much, man. People would arrive, come forward and start saying, we have arrived, we borrowed money to come and see you. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? You know? I said, now it's the challenges of dealing with the baggage home and myself. At the richest stage, I just had to cut it off to try and develop fast before I can be able to help anybody. So I worked for a year. I saved up $200. So the $200, I was born on the 22nd of April. So 22nd April, 2001, I had registered great flex safaris and the 23rd I began great flex safaris. So what I did at the beginning was, you know, the weddings. When you want to do business, you look at the opportunities available around you, what the people are doing and how you can do it differently. But I was young. So I would go on the street, find Wadumaya with a mattress versus Benz. That time it was 90. Then there were different types of coronas. So I would stop anybody and say, what are you using your car for? Others would abuse you. But you know, when you're poor, you don't care. Some guys will remember up to today. So I got blue mattresses, Benz pictures of blue mattresses, blue coronas, what? I had a proof case, plastic proof case. So I would attend wedding meetings where I am not invited. So it was a church. I used to go to a total church. It was called Kampala Pentecostal Church. So I knew whenever they had wedding meetings, I'd go and sit in the wedding meetings. Every Thursday was the best time. Then Saturdays at the National Theatre that we were waiting to wear. So I'd sit in there and they'd say, oh, we want cars for weddings. Then I would show them I have cars for weddings. And I would charge, say, $50 for my siblings. I would charge $35 for corona for the wedding. And I would make $10 or $5 spending on this. So every day by 6 a.m., I would be at the washing, be making sure the cars are clean, hand them over to the guys. And I'd go for nine months. That's what made me survive. Then I saved enough to start off my first office. Not this one. My first office was under staircase on rainbow arcades. When you come from Krumah Road, and there were two companies under staircase, were paying $20 a month. Each of us was paying $10 a month. But it was a good location, much as I was under the staircase. I've taken over my first employee. My first employee was also now earning about $20 a month. Man, it was hard. It was tough. Voices came, man, telling me how. But I saved up some money by January 2002. Enough to depost on a pick on a minibus. I was about the end of 2002. No, beginning of, end of 2001. So I buy, I go to a guy called Al-Maliki at a car bond. I depost seven million shillings, Uganda shillings, which is about $2,000. But the car was 14 million shillings, which is $4,000. So I told him I'll pay. Then I had extra $2,000. I said, okay, I'm going to now Holland to look for business. I found a visa. My friends hosted me in Holland. I went to Utrecht, in Utrecht, in Netherlands. Every January, there's a tourism fair. So my friends took me there, started looking for business. I worked hard, but it was very tough because I had no backup. There was no one. But every night I could go and look for tour companies. And at that time, internet had just started. So I would go to an internet cafe, look for tour companies, write with different tour companies. And I tell my friends the story. I write to a company in Spain called Crutura Safari, Crutura, which was a Spanish company. I write to them, I think almost every day. So I think after two weeks or three weeks, they write me back extremely very nasty email. They write me back and nasty email. Don't ever do this again. We have ignored you for some time. We've been writing emails asking us to work with you. There's no evidence for us to work with you. But so that, then I stopped. But 10 years later, they were working with me. And I met this guy in London, the owner of the company in London. I said, but do you remember? I mean, I wrote a letter to you guys and you sent me a letter. Really abusing me. The guy said, no, no, no. That time you were nobody. Now you can sit down with us and talk. You know, we don't use, this is business. We don't use emotions. Business is not emotional stuff, man. Now you have a name that you can work with. You have insurance. You have, you know, things that we need. You have cars. That time you had nothing. And you're here wasting our time every day writing twice a day, man. That's not nice. So you learn your lessons along the way. But you also don't take it personal. One thing about business, business, if you take things personal, you'll be finished. So we, in the briefcase I buy, I post on the car. January 2002 I go to Holland. When I'm in Holland, I'd left the car with my cousin. A friend of mine had come to borrow the car for a wedding and gave it to a drunkard that smashed it. Finished. I come back and many guys started telling me, man, we told you can't manage business. What are you doing in business? It was hard. Just have to go and look for a job. Now the owner of the car demanded me $2,000. I have taken on an office, I'm paying $10 a month. I've taken on the first employee, I'm paying about $20 a month. So all this was such a big burden. But thankfully January 2002, a lady goes on TripAdvisor, not a TripAdvisor, goes on a lonely planet. They have a chat room. So she says, she's called Cynthia. I'm going to Uganda and I need to find a company to travel around with. So my Dutch friends go there, there's a family couple that just dedicated themselves to go online to just find people who are asking about Uganda and recommending me. Because I guided them so well. And those guys have traveled with me now 30 times. The husband just passed on, but they're like family now. I go to Holland, I have an apartment for me there. So those guys just would go and internet recommend me because I had given them a good experience. So I learned about the value of giving people good experience. And if you see all over the internet, I have a very good name because of giving people good experiences. So I go to the owners of the car and I tell him, you know, there are two things. You either put me in or allow me to pay your car at least within another six, seven months. The remaining balance. I'm paying for a car that I don't own. A car that crashed, a car that was written off. So I pay him every month that I had an extra man, I pay the guy. But this lady came Cynthia in January 2002. And I gave her a tour guide and a very, very good tour guide who knew about seven hundred and twenty species of birds. Very nice. Went to Queen Elizabeth National Park, man. She loved it. I hired a car. She loved it. So she comes and says, man, when I go back to the U.S., she was working with the World Bank. If I go back to the U.S., I am going to do something for you. So I thought it was just a Muslim lady who is emotional about Africa and things else to help everybody. But she actually recommends a group in May. That group, they come and there are six of them. I again organized a trip for them. They had come from World Bank to do research on malaria. But I combined two groups, two groups of them. So there were six, a group from Canada and those guys. So they went to Queen Elizabeth National Park. They come back. But there was one tall guy. I couldn't bring him to my office. It's only me, probably a new boss, who could fit in my office. I don't think I had charlatans. Because I met them and charlatan briefed them. But I gave them a good guide, a good car, good service. So we never had binoculars. We had no bad book, nothing. Now, this friend of mine, who was the tour guide, I was in school with him. Doing the AOS was a travel training school. But he was very good in birds. So this guy had a bad book, had binoculars. And this guy was interpreting birds. Called Martin, or Kot. He was interpreting birds, interpreting birds. This man got shocked. You have no bad book. You have no binoculars. But you understand this, because it was cross-checking what this guy was telling him. So the guy comes back and says, Amos, this is the best trip I've had in my life. But when I go back to the US, I'll do something. Now, meanwhile, June, I finish paying for the car and boss. Things become hard, July. August, I contemplate closing. Hey, September, I actually attempt to give up the office. But the voice just tells me, I'm not a saint of anything. But I believe in God. I believe there's a power out there. But just keep telling me, Amos, hang in there, man. I hang in there. October, I hang in there, man. November 22nd, I get a phone call from the US. My name is Tom Carter. I traveled with you in May. By the way, I am an editor with Washington Times. I have written an article titled, Hards By Past Uganda. Such a beautiful country without tourists. Boss, three pages. My contact there, man. Hey, first group comes, we read about it in Washington. Second group. And every group was a car. If you go to the bond and buy a second hand car, you know like that. But when I'm buying these cars, not for me. I'm still living in Islam. I fear, even today, when I think about poverty and how much I went through poverty, I do not waste any resource that I get as a person. In fact, if a day of a hungry man should be a day of inspiration for him. So that time, I just thought to myself, man, just starting buying first car, second car, third car. Tourist car is coming. We read about you. But it's now learnt that if I do a good job to tourists, not everybody is going to recommend me, but some, most of them will. But at that time, I was doing one very important thing. I met every tourist before they left for the national parks, briefed them about their trip, and also met every tourist at the end of their trip, and told them about where I've been, where I am, and where I'm going. So that one helped them buy into my vision. They buy into your vision. So we just started studying, bought boats. Then, of course, after some time, I said, OK, let me now go and hire a small house in an estate, small estate. Then use a garage as my office. I started taking off now. I was ready now to think about marriage, because when I had enough money, I can look after a family.