 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. In the traditional world, certain responsibilities were set aside for the canceling of elders. But today, the community structure is broken. However, young people like Elisha Ojuang have taken up the mantle to preserve the heritage of our African communal society. So, Elisha, tell us a bit about yourself. Thank you so much for having me, Grenis. My name is Elisha Ojuang. I am from Kisumu County. My home is in Nyakach sub-county. I am a graduate from Moe University, the foundation of knowledge, where I studied education science. Basically, I'm a teacher of physics and chemistry. Apart from that, I am also the founder of Lake Region Readers Hub. Lake Region Readers Hub is an organization that brings together young people who love to read, young people who are serious about intentional living. So, tell us a bit why Lake Region Readers Hub? Lake Region Readers Hub, first of all, because we are coming from the lakeside city. So, we are so proud of Lake Victoria and would love to identify ourselves with that. And we are talking of Readers Hub because we are basically people who love to read. So, this is about young people who we just met in the city. We just met in our workplaces, and then you discover that this person has a particular passion that is also found in me, and that is the love for books. It is often assumed that Kazia Vitabu will share Shulemi. You're to take it into the community. How has that journey gone so far? The journey has been amazing, I want to say, and challenging as well. It is true that Vitabu shulemi. But you find that from what I believe and if you read the Bible, I have discovered that wherever people suffer, wherever we have problems, the first course is majorly ignorance. And I believe that there are a lot of things that we were not taught in school, but we have to learn them anyway. So, because of the fact that where there is ignorance, where people suffer, we decided to take forward the idea of renewing our minds with good books, feeding our minds correctly, and trying to go overboard, and at least learn a thing or two that we could have not learned in school. The journey has been both easy and challenging, but we keep going. God has been opening doors, and we see people running with the vision, and we are glad to have taken up the initiative. Yes. So, how did you get the inspiration to do this? The inspiration to start Lake Region Readers Hub came from my love for books. I am a reader, I love reading. In fact, I would say, what food is to you? That is what reading is to me. Interesting. I would rather put aside food and read, and then eat later. Because you discover that we all need to be empowered to become the best that we can ever become in our spheres of influence, and the best source of empowerment from my own perspective is books. Yes. And when did you start the idea, and how has it been received by the community? I conceived the idea of Lake Region Readers Hub in June 2021, and from that time I started doing my research. I started trying to locate if I could find a Readers Hub, a book club in the city. I went searching, I never found one, and just as they say, if you come from a poor family, it's upon you to ensure that a rich family comes from you. So, I tried locating a book club in the city, I never found one, and that is when I realized that a book club has to come out of me. So, I sat down and wrote the vision and brainstormed about it. In August 2021, I met a friend called Austin Otieno, he famously calls himself Dumas, and he happened to love reading as well. And so we sat together, we read a book together, a book called Starts With Why by Simon Sinek, and from starting with why the idea of Lake Region Readers Hub came, we said, wow, what if we reach out? Do you know any other friend who is into books? And he knew somebody, he happened to know somebody, had not been in the city for long by then. So he connected me to one person and we came together, a team of three people, that is myself, Austin Otieno and a lady by the name Weymagome, and that is where the idea of Lake Region Readers Hub started. Yes. So, you mentioned something about starting your idea back in 2021. Were you still in Moe University? I was out of Moe University in 2019, but I had not dropped the idea of reading, because in Moe University, we were consuming the content, but I believe there is something more than the content that we get from school that we need to get, because there are basically so many things that you don't learn in school. And so, from my love for books, I was able to discover that I'm getting so many things in these books that are written by good authors, and so I made the decision that wow, this is the direction I want to go. Yes. So, what kinds of books do you read in the groups, and why those books? Our reading is diverse. We don't narrow down somebody to what they should read, but as an organization, we also ensure that there is a specific place where our attention is directed. So, majorly at Lake Region Readers Hub, we do self-help books, and we focus on certain thematic areas like finance, personal development, character. We focus on issues that can help me become the best that I can become in my sphere of influence, and then we source books. We get book recommendations, and we do our own research and get the best books that talk about these thematic areas that we are paying attention to. Do you have people supporting your club or your organization, or is it a sole individual task? We have people supporting us, but first of all, it comes from us, because this is something we are passionate about. This is something we are very serious about intentional living. So, first of all, it has to come from individual sacrifice. We sacrifice as members of the team, and then of course a friend of mine says that if you have a good vision and you pursue it the right way, supply will never lack. So, there is also a Chinese proverb that says, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So, when we conceived this vision, it took only about a month before I met a friend called Nyandusi Nyachai, and when he looked at our vision extensively, he was like, wow, Elisha, I want to do whatever I can do to support your vision. So, we have Nyandusi Nyachai supporting our vision, and we also have a lot of friends around in the city. I may not mention them all, but trust me, we have support. Yes. And speaking of teachers, you said you are a teacher. Yes. How do you infuse your reader's hub with your profession? You know, first of all, you cannot be a teacher if you are not a reader. And in fact, they say the moment you stop to read, you begin to expire. So, I believe in personally going the extra mile to ensure that I feed myself with something that is just more than the content that I consumed in the university and the content that I deliver in class. So, I try to merge my teaching career with reading in that apart from teaching, I ensure that I also learn as an individual, I also grow, I also become a role model and a mentor to the students that I am teaching. And I think loving books also helps me inspire the learners to see the value of investing their time into reading not just the content, not just for examinations, but reading for a better life. Yes. And are there any other activities you are involved in? Sure. If you have knowledge and you don't put it into practice, that is just mere information. So, as a reader's hub, we don't read and end there. We read, but we go the next step of asking ourselves, how can we transform this information to power? How can we put what we are learning into practice to better ourselves and the people around us? So, we have activities that we do. At Lake Region Readers Hub, we call them our major definite goals. And these are five initiatives that we undertake. Number one is what we call mentorship for excellent stewardship. We talk of mentorship for excellent stewardship because I believe and we believe at Lake Region Readers Hub that each one of us is just a steward of the gifts, the talents, and the abilities that we happen to find inside of us. And so, in our initiative of mentorship for excellent stewardship, number one we emphasize that each individual, each member of Lake Region Readers Hub must have a mentor. Like I have a mentor in Yandu Senior Chai. My other friends have mentors who have of course succeeded in their spheres of influence. So, if you are a journalist, for example, if you join Lake Region Readers Hub, we will ensure that we link you up to a journalist who has succeeded in that particular sphere so that you can look up to them. They can mentor you. They can show you the way. They can show you how to go about your passion, how to go about your goals in life. We also insist on having accountability partners. First of all, we believe that a life not evaluated is not worth living. So, we believe in having accountability partners. I have my accountability partner at Lake Region Readers Hub with whom I share my goals for the year, my goals for the month. They share with me their goals and objectives for the year and the month, and we keep each other on toes. So, we merge all that under our initiative that we call mentorship for excellent stewardship. And at the end of every month, we bring on board mentors and just have coffee and have a talk with them and have them inspire the team. Secondly, we have an initiative that we call Transformation or Leaders Roundtable. Transformation or Leaders Roundtable brings together grassroot leaders, currently grassroot leaders who are operating in Kisumu County. We bring leaders who have taken the initiative, who have taken the initiative of impacting the world in their spheres of influence. Like we have Didi Victor at Dunga Beach. So, passionate about conserving the environment. We have leaders like Boniface Akachat, Kisumu Peace and Justice Center. So, passionate about creating, preserving and promoting peace. And we have several other leaders. We come together in a roundtable and we encourage exchange programs. We bring on board leaders to share ideas on how they intend to transform lives. The goal of this initiative is to raise leaders who are going to be pace-setters, leaders who are going to be game changers, leaders who are going to put the interest of others ahead of their interest, leaders who are going to eat last after the followers are eaten. We also have an initiative that we call a smile on the face initiative. A smile on the face initiative, we ensure that we put a smile on the faces of people that no longer see a reason to smile. These are people maybe who they have gone through ups and downs in life and they think it's a done deal for them. They think they're already experiencing hell or not. For example, we have people in prisons. We reach out to them with messages of hope. We reach out to them with a lot of inspiration. We inspire them to dream again, to believe again and we link them up. We make sure that we go with people who have been through the same, same thing that they are going through. But in one way or the other, God made a way and they came out of it and they are now doing an amazing job in their societies, impacting lives. We make these people know that they can dream again. They can believe again. We visit orphanages. We visit schools. A good example that I love using is the Lake Victoria Upbeat School in Nyarlanda, a school that just admits students who have been through challenges in life like young girls who became pregnant as teenagers for one reason or another. They dropped out of school and now they are just in the society. This school admits them back. What is our role as Lake Region Readers? We visit these people that have deeply rooted underlying issues with messages of hope. We put a smile on their faces. We donate items. We donate staff from our friends and well wishers and we ensure that we just have good time with them and we make sure that any day we spend with them is a day that they would look forward to. We also have an initiative that we call our mental health awareness program and we do this monthly. We are living at a time when mental illness is on the all-time high. We see people committing suicides. We see broken families. We see a lot of bad stuff taking place around and we believe that we cannot sit pretty good and assume that things are going to get better. We talk to them. We listen to them. We provide way forwards. We create that opportunity for people to just share and listen to one another and have a community where you feel you belong and at the end of the day you work out a better person fully equipped to take care of your mental health. We also have our fifth initiative that we call a beautiful earth initiative. Beautiful earth initiative is our commitment as lake region readers have. It is our commitment to the next generation that we intend to pass to them a beautiful earth with a clear sky with clean air and with clean water. So we have programs whereby we just clean the environment. We do sensitization. We have sensitization programs where we can choose a particular place and just sensitize the community. First of all, we clean the place and then after cleaning we talk to the people. We tell them about the importance of taking care of our environment. Wow. I love how your mind works. The initiatives are really, really leaving me at wow. Thank you. A young person like you think like that. That is a real leader. And let's just go back. What are the drawbacks you encounter in this activity? What are such challenges? Number one, you discover that most people, they are not so intentional about serious living. You discover that we happen to live in a society where people mostly want to be pushed to do things. We live in a society that believes so much in handouts, believes so much in competition, believes so much in shortcuts. And we have experience to this even as a reader's hub because you have some members coming on board and within a month or so you discover that their intention is to change the vision of the goal, the vision of the organization for their own personal benefit. But I want to say that as a reader's hub we look at challenges as opportunities to grow. The challenges make us more aware, more sensitive, more intentional on growth. And yeah, we have tried to customize ourselves to just look at challenges as opportunities. Great. And so what is your next step into the future? Into the future we are looking forward into a place where we can have a robust community of people who love reading, of people who are serious about intentional living. We are looking forward to raising a large community of leaders who are interested in putting the interest of followers ahead of them. We are looking forward. We have a big dream of having a great leadership school in the future in Kisumu City whose primary goal is to raise leaders who are transformational leaders. Whose primary goal is to raise leaders who are investing time daily and I say daily into renewing their minds, into feeding their minds correctly. We are looking forward to a society that is serious about taking care of environment. We are looking forward to reaching out to as many as possible with the intention of putting it inside of them, inspiring them to take care of our environment. Yeah, so we are looking forward to some great stuff in the future. Yes. Your vision is really one to follow up on and I would love to know what happens next. Thank you. So if one wanted to join or find you, how would they contact you? We have not ventured into all these social media platforms for a reason that is very specific to us. We want to raise a team of people that are just professional users of media. So you just find us on Facebook, Lake Region Readers Hub, and if you want to join us, you can just call our number 07-9131-8507. You will meet our customer care desk. They will promptly respond to you. Amazing. So what would you tell the community and the youth who are running low on hope with the frustration of unemployment and such things? Number one, I want to tell our youths that we have to accept, first of all, as an individual, I discovered that our education system aims at creating job seekers, not job creators. And so I want to challenge the youth to even those in school, even those who are already out of school and going about seeking employment or hustling here and there, we must change how we think. We must stop thinking as job seekers and start thinking as job creators. A great one American leader once said that the time has come when it's not the time to ask what your country can do for you. It's the time to ask what can you do for your country. And I believe that each one of us, I want to tell you, I believe that nobody ever came into this world empty. Each one of us has something inside of them that the world is just waiting for you to unleash. So just discover your purpose. Just choose what you want to do with your life. Just look at the environment you happen to find yourself in and ask yourself, how do I, what do I intend to give back to the society? How do I intend to make the world a better place than I found it? What are some of the problems in my society and how am I going to solve these problems? And I think it's time when young people must go back to discovering who they are because we all have abilities, we all have talents, we all have potentials. The only challenge is that most people have not discovered. So take your time, discover yourself, know your potentials, and exploit them for the greater good. And it's high time we stopped waiting to get a job opening, to get a job opportunity. Of course it's good, there are opportunities, there are jobs, but I think if we are going to move from a third world state to a first world state, we are going to need more young people who are going to be job creators and not job seekers. And if we can discover ourselves, if we can discover our potentials, I know that it is possible. I have loved you, I have loved your initiatives, and I am glad that you are here to share that. Thank you so much. As you have heard it, it is high time we stop to think about seeking for jobs, but to become the job creators. Only if you discover yourself, you discover your talent, and what you feel you are passionate about. This has been Youth in Action. I am Nyong'uesa Grenith.