 This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. This is the way to do it. We have witnessed many graduates get desperate because of unemployment. Have you ever imagined instead of waiting to be employed, you could use that training to be an employer yourself? Today, Irene Olwande, an editor for the TVET Star newspaper, is here to share with us more. Irene, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for having me. I am always in my element, anytime, anywhere. So an editor. I'm amazed. You look very young to be an editor. I am. So what is the genesis? So I'd say, first of all, I'm Irene Olwande. I have practice journalism. I have education, background education in journalism. I graduated from University with the skills in print journalism. I have, before getting here, I've always wanted to be in the journalism sector. As a young girl, I wanted to be a news anchor. My icon was always Angugi. For me, she was outstanding because of her short hair. She used to be plump. She was not what so many ladies would be or she was not the basic outfit or the basic character you'll see on the television. So I was always amazed by her body, her physique, her uniqueness, her short hair. So I always wanted to be there because as a young girl, I had short hair. So she was an icon to me. Besides that, my family played a big role, has played a big role in my journalism career. When I was a little girl, my dad used to bring newspapers all the time into the house. And he'd always encouraged us to read. It was either a newspaper or a magazine. And he'd always ask us, what have you, what did you read yesterday? What have you read today? What has stood out for you? And given that my dad has been in the journalism field, he was in the advertisement field. And when he used to bring home these newspapers, he'd always tell us, oh, today, this is my advert. I actually booked it. So that's part of the interest in me wanting to work in the journalism field. But I knew not in the advertising field. So as I grew up, I always wanted to be a news anchor, a TV anchor. I just wanted to host a show. But things changed when I joined campus. For me, given I joined a city campus, I was not able to get the practical sides of either TV production or radio. So I majored in print because all along I've been a very strong writer, right from childhood, whether English, composition, ancient, I've been a good writer. I've always written so well. And that has been my strong suit of my stronghold. So it wasn't difficult for me to switch from wanting to learn TV to being on print completely. So what is the history of TVet's Tarnier's Paper? So the TVet's Tarnier's Paper is a monthly publication. TVet started out, you'd wonder why the TVet, so TVet means technical vocation education training. Why TVet is because, first of all, as I said, I'm a university graduate, degree holder. But I've faced the challenges I faced so that I could only graduate. I went to school, I paid my dues, paid my school fees with everything. But we all know the university system, how it sometimes is so unfair to its own students. You either have missing marks that take you years or the system you're placed in does not go well with how you're supposed to check in your education. Like, for instance, in my account, I started my, when you join campus, you started first year, first semester. But when I joined, I started in second year, second semester. Then I finished my fourth year with first year, first semester. So it was a module that you are placed where there's a lot, where there's a quarter, and you go. So for that reason, I really had issues with missing marks and ETC, ETC, that ate into my graduation time because they could never be traced because I was in various lots. I started with various lots within the campus. So this challenge, it really hit me up because every year you look forward to your graduation. Every year, every year, you follow up and there's always that news that, ah, unfortunately, you're not going to graduate because you still have two more missing marks. We can't trace them. Or unfortunately, this and this is happening. So that frustration, that anger of me not being able to graduate, spurred in me the urge to have, to actually not only look into the education I have, but to acquire skills. So I did start the Tivette Science Cooper together with family members, that is my father and my brothers. So my second born follower, I'm the first one. My second born follower also graduated from the university. But we all know the challenge of unemployment. We have term maps to look for employment. We all know how it is out here currently. And this, and my dad has been, my parents have been supporting us through and through. I thank God that they have been people who they have not been pushing us so hard to, you know, to the level where we can actually get mental torture of why are we not employed. They have been supporting us. So my dad, so this frustration, both in myself and in my siblings, of I have graduates and they can't find employment. For my case, I don't have the paper. I can't, I have not graduated, but I did graduate finally this year in February. My brother, he has the papers, but either you're told you're too young or there's always a reason why you cannot be taken in. So when my dad came on board and told us, I want us to start something. I want us to have something for us. We had very many ideas. We can do this. We can do that. The conceptualization, we had so many ideas on the table. But why we started the newspaper was because my dad has built in advertising within the print sector, within the journals and fields. I myself have studied journalism. I'm good at writing. And my brother, he has, he has good skills in terms of getting to get business or talking to clients. So we decided, why not? And also the frustration of being in a university graduating and not you, you're graduating with a theoretical skills and you don't have the technical skills, partly this also affects your job hunting. So we decided to actually be in the tivets because also if as a family we knew that we had a solution of activity that would offer the journalism course, I would have taken it, whether it would have been for four years, but I would have known I would have studied in a tivet institution. I would have gotten both the theoretical and the technical or the skills part of it. So it's this whole frustration, these challenges made us come together and made us do the tivets time newspaper so that we can actually talk about what people did not do because just imagine my dad is somebody who's learned. He knew about tivet institutions, but he was like, no, you know, at that time, you have to go to the university. That is the past mark of it. But I think for me, if we had a little bit ideal, we had this mono legend, you can do this, you can try it, even if you do even if you work in a tivet sector, or if you're taught in a tivet sector, you can actually try it, you can get both the theoretical and the skills part, then I think I would have taken that option. So having come up with the tivets time newspaper was because we really want to empower, we want to sensitize, we want to educate the youth, we want to educate the community and the society at large of the opportunities that exist within the education system, within the higher learning education sector. It's not only universities, you can also get it in other sectors. Interesting. Saying that your stronghold is print, did you ever get a chance to train on the other sectors? Oh yes, I did. As much as I really measured in print journalism, I have skills wide in the journalism sector. What I did actually do, I never waited to be taught some of these things. When I was in campus, I used to make use of the IT, our computer laboratory so much and I would always got amazed on what is actually happening, how do these videos come to play. So I remember when I first encountered video editing and I got interested in the editing part of video and audio was when we were given an assignment in campus, the first thing was hell. I tried editing and it was not coming through but I was like I was determined until I handed in my assignment and when we were graded I actually performed well and I was like okay this is something I can do. It was just one unit assignment but I got that interest of I want to learn more. So I actually took it upon myself to look for video editors or audio editors that I can use and started training myself personally. I would just edit funny, funny clips, just small, small clips that I can have that skill and get to train myself more. Not only the editing skills that I have, I also got interest in social media digital marketing, I'll say social media content creation. Given that for a long time I was not employed, I said I wanted to put my journalism skills to use. So I got interest in social media content creation and I've actually worked for a few institutions as their social media content creator. So I have actually had interest in the whole journalism sector but I've also acquired my own skills like getting to know how things work here and there so that I don't only have one skill but I'm a bit vast. And how easy is it to start something like this? Do you, is it just so easy Amma you have to have some skill? It's not easy, let's be honest. First of all, it's not easy but you can do it. The reason I say this was first is the whole idea of it all. During this whole conceptualization, during this whole process of developing your idea, you keep second guessing, you keep improving what your initial idea. So it's not easy because at first there's always that fear. I'd say that and that fear is what you need to overcome first for you to move forward. So it is not easy but it's doable. Once you move past the ideology part of it, you're thinking about it and start by putting something on the ground first you can do it. For instance, when we were starting the TVET newspaper, it started sometime I'd say late last year. You see how it started way back because we had discussions. Why are we doing the newspaper? Why can't we do this? Then how will we get our clients? What if we don't get it? How will we fight with the big giants in the industry? How will we make our footing? So those are some of the questions we've got to ask ourselves as a team that was working always building this idea. We really had a lot of questions. We really had a lot of doubts but we're like we won't know until we try. Then you said okay let's do a first three run. Let's see if we can do three runs and see how it comes out. When we did the first newspaper, we were so happy. It had a lot of mistakes. So many mistakes but we were so excited. We were like wow we have something. We were very happy. We did the second one. Still had the many mistakes but we were so excited. The third one that's when we now we started improving a bit. We started realizing how we now we want to actually place ourselves in the sector so that we also get known amongst the big giants who exist. So it's not that easy but once you get past the ideology point, once you get past that fear and once you even put that initiative then you will get there. If you think of something that means you can do it. If you ever thought of something I want to do this business. I want to start this venture. I want to start this initiative. That means you have the capacity of the capability of doing it. Even if you can start it alone then have a team come in later, you can do it. What of the startup capital? That question. Wow. We didn't have money when we were starting the tickets. We started it first of all I'd say we started it when we were looking at various sources. We had to as I said it started late last year. So we had to start thinking of how will we do the first publication or how will we do the first three publications? How will we sustain ourselves? So for us as a publication immediately now we sustain ourselves through subscriptions, member subscriptions, the institutions that have subscribed to getting the copies monthly and we also do advertisements. So that is one way. Then we also do profiles for institutions or for individuals who want the institutions of the activities to be profiled. So that is our sustainability. For the first capital we actually did put a bit of money here and there. We tried saving, we tried having a bank of it and that's how we started. But then again we also talked to those we scouted and we looked at the people who we thought we'd work with or who we knew we wanted to work with and we approached them. We told them we have this idea. We want to have these assistants. This is how much this is the money we have. We can't pay you for right now. How about we have this agreement for these three publications that we want to run and we will pay you as we move forward. So it's as much as somebody might not have the startup capital you can always look for there are always institutions that are always offering loans or you can always have an agreement with somebody or with your business partner or the person you would think can have an input within your business. Have an agreement and say within that agreement I have a term of how you would work or engagement so that it can be easier for you also to get to know how you'll finance all this at the end of the day so that you don't forget to take big debt but you might not be able to service. And since you started what have your achievements been so far? So the TVT newspaper has been is currently is barely one year old. It's around seven. This is the seventh publication we are doing. We have managed to garner various clients within the industry who have trusted us with their information with their products to run in our in our publication. So having the major achievement has been having to convince or having to get those clients on board to agree to work with our newspaper the TVT newspaper has been very that is the greatest achievement because through that that is how we get sustainability through that that is how we are able to move and even have and even build our human resource and build ourselves and have the capacity building that we need. The other achievement has been actually just having the publication also being able to run. We are moving I'd say since its inception we have been doing well. So having had the publication run continuously monthly is also an achievement because when you start something and along there are challenges but when you start and you're able to at least keep it moving despite the few challenges then that means you're doing well you need to keep on going. On that what are the challenges you faced or the things that you went through but you came out strong. Wow we are still facing challenges. We are still facing challenges as I've said we are not yet a year old and we know for an initiative or a business to for it to see two years that is always the mark of success or of thriving. So now the challenges we've been having majorly as I say is having to convince people to come on board. Many people do not believe in startup or startup initiatives by the youth and that is quite sad because people tend to think you're so young you cannot invest in you as in maybe this is a lot of losses or they'll tell you give it a try then let us know in the next two years how it goes they want to see they test your faith you know so having right beyond those challenges of actually convincing partners or convincing clients that we are actually doing a good job or we will deliver for you that the same way the big giants do deliver is actually a major challenge and then also we have the clients who you who some of them do not wish to invest if it's not if they do not know who is behind this then people want to know who is behind the publication or so if it's somebody we don't know then I'm sorry we can't invest or we can't give you business that is the major challenge we have but at the end of the day we are always thankful that we have people who believe in the product we have people who see the sense in the product and know that as much as it's an initiative by youths and and by the youth it's something that actually is geared towards sensitizing the society at large and media plays a role a big role in being the watchdog of society how does this play in your tidbits Tanya's paper so being a watchdog means you get to relay the correct information the right information the most relevant information to your readers or to your to your audience so for the tidbits Tanya's paper we are a watchdog by we ensuring we work closely with these institutions we have a wide network we have a network that we tap into and they are our sources we ask them what happens within your institution so that we have the right information so that when we are giving out information or whatever we are writing out in our publication it is verified because it's coming from an institution that it's doing it and we can prove that this is our source it is happening and it is it does exist where do you see yourself progressing in future for the newspaper I have big dreams let's say we have big dreams of a team of the tidbits Tanya's paper we want to see this as a household name given that we are measuring in a sector that not so many people of the community does not know much about so we are seeing ourselves in the next 20 and in the next two years we want to be a household name we want to have impacted more lives than the lives we have impacted currently through our publication a few students have gotten to get placements within the tidbits institution simply because they were not aware and you know we are our publication is majorly we also distribute it's national but we also distribute we ensure that we distributed within the rural setup so that and the rural setup so and the informal setup so that they are the and they are the menus the other ones who don't have this knowledge and sometimes when they get this knowledge they are so surprised that actually there is an institution that I can join with their grades I have and do something and improve my life so in the next few years we want to impact more lives than they want to have impacted and in the next few years we want to have we're aiming at having more partners and most people that's come on board and work with us so that we can you know we cannot do it alone in the sector so we are aiming at having more partners most people that's come on board join hands and in and also just widen our network at large nationally and internationally and so there are many trained journalists who have given up on their degrees because of the high rate of unemployment what advice can you give look beyond what you've studied for just look beyond that for me I looked beyond the the the graduation I I looked beyond the school the fact that I went to school and did media I looked beyond it and and said I have the skills I gained the skills I gained the know-how so how am I going to use it to propel myself as much as I'm still trying to find a footing so look beyond the education have that education but have some skill that will help you move past it also be streetwise and street smarts um just try to adapt or get us currently we have even digital platforms and use that the people who are making a living out of that so find a suit for for what will work for you learn the sector you are in like now learn the journalism sector it has taken me I've gotten to learn the sector and go to no we have tv radio print now we have the digital platform how am I able to use this develop yourself beyond what you have beyond what you have studied for also um unemployment it's so much I've been there I know it it mentally it's you and not only you even your family it's it's them up so much and just have a support system that you know when you feel like I think I'm crashing today have somebody you can call and say I need I need you I need to talk and they will be there for you so have a support system that will be with you through and through at times we mess up things do not go the right way but always be sure always know that it is a learning process you know um you'll fail you'll you'll set an initiative you'll fail you'll do this but it is a learning process so don't give up when it has gone down don't give up when you have disappointed your support system have that courage to say I'm sorry but I still need you can remove past this and have an initiative mindset um my initiative mindset I mean you always have random thoughts passing by your mind sometimes those random thoughts can build something can help you build an empire run them through somebody and see what that random thought can build up thank you so much for coming I have learned a lot learned a lot from you I am a journalist myself but your mindset has kept me thinking what else can I do I will also challenge you what do you have out there that idea you have go knock on those doors that you are afraid to knock at and you will get out there with a lesson or a challenge that you will be taking up this has been youth in action I am young whistle grannies this is the way to do it this is the way to do it this is the way to do it