No Kidding, KamiLimu Mentorship Program Truly Changed My Life
You have heard of the KamiLimu Mentorship Program, right? No? Before proceeding further, just quickly do a simple search of the program, skim through the site to get an idea of what I am talking about, and then, come back right after and continue re-living this wonderful story with me. Do not worry if you find yourself caught up in what you will see there, I understand it can be overwhelming to discover what a gem the program is and you were still unaware of it!
Here let me help you : https://www.kamilimu.org/
Though my relationship with KamiLimu began much earlier, this beautiful tale began on the 2nd of January, 2019, when I received an email that I had been accepted as a mentee for Cohort 4.0. It was during one of the ‘stolen’ breaks at the restaurant where I was working when I just decided to check if there were new messages, missed calls or emails, since I had not touched my phone for over four hours. I was not expecting to find any response regarding my application to the mentorship program because they had earlier told us that they would release the results on the 5th, but as fate would have it, this was the day.
So there I was staring at my phone disbelievingly, reading the email again and again while hiding from the supervisor, and fighting through a million emotions. I wanted to scream and cry at the same time, but then again I couldn’t. I wanted to tell the cashier who was closest to me, but I knew she would not have understood what the hell I was talking about. I bid my time, and as soon as I could sneak away, I called the only person who knew how much I really needed this opportunity. I called my boyfriend.
The first time I learnt about KamiLimu was in 2017, when I met with one of the then mentees at a tech event at iHub. I was only in first year and I had already started feeling the pressure of becoming an adult, wanting to be successful by the age of 24 and maintaining a pristine record academically. Everything was so new and I felt like a failure for not being able to handle all the new responsibilities like everybody else. So when the mentee mentioned that the applications for the next cohort would be open later in the year, I made her promise to alert me. And sure she did. However, I never applied. Someone told me to wait around one more year until I could at least figure out how I wanted to benefit from the program. I might have or not been dating this person, lol! So it was that in 2018, I could only actively follow the activities of the program, together with its founder, Dr. Chao Mbogho while readying myself for the next cohort.
The launch was held on 16th February, 2019, and I remember being visibly scared of the entire place and population. Everywhere there were beautiful ladies and young men looking confident and at home, while there I was fearing even to say hello to the next person. I am not sure if anybody else could see how tense I was. I have never felt so conscious of myself like I did at the time. I imagined that one mistake could make everyone to hate me and I would be alone for the next eight months. Later as I came to learn about the other mentees, I realized that they felt similarly and we were all holding our breath. Somehow as the event progressed, as I listened to Dr. Chao and the keynote speaker, Uduak Amimo, my nervousness vanished and I allowed myself to have fun especially taking photos. I even made my first friend, Monica Wangari, who was my seatmate and literally the first person I had the courage to speak to! I really do not recall much of what was said at the launch, but whatever they told us left me feeling hopeful and glowing with the promise that my life was about to change. For the first day, that was enough for me.
The first assignment Dr. Chao gave us in the following week was one on confidence building. Sounds awesome and easy, right? Huh! The test was on impostor syndrome and contained about a hundred questions quizzing us on how we reacted to different situations, how we felt about ourselves and how we carried our achievements and failures. If you had never really looked at yourself in the mirror, this was it. I mean not the few fleeting seconds you spend on the mirror while in a hurry, but the calm but panicked long moment where everything else fades away and all you can see is you, admitting who you really think you are. She knew that many of us might have had the urge to impress with shining scores, so she really insisted and implored us to be as honest with ourselves as we much as we could because that was the only way that would let her know how she could help us. So in the evening when I was settled I took the test. I did not stop to think about any of the questions. I was so desperate.
Working at a restaurant where I was had to do all kinds of chores from washing the toilets, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, serving customers and running errands, just to cater for my upkeep while all my friends were at home during the holidays, had really gotten through my self-esteem and I suffered from depression. I badly needed this. When I saw my score was 84%, I cried; I was in the spectrum of extreme low self-esteem and as much as I knew about it beforehand, it still hurt to have the worst confirmed. I sent an apologetic email with my results to Dr. Chao and wished more than anything that I would be cured of this disease.
The next few weeks were almost a blur. Life was moving too fast. We had sessions three Wednesdays and two Saturdays every month, while completing at least one home assignment every week. Intense does not start to describe it especially if you lived in Nyeri, a three-hour drive, and with an active academic life!
Moments to Remember:
There is a lot that I can write about how KamiLimu impacted my life but I would probably end up writing an entire book! If you think I am joking, there are more than 120 alumni whom you can confirm this with.
In this section, I will only tell of a handful of the awesome experiences that I had in the program and hopefully they will be enough.
1. Revealing of our Group Members and Peer Mentor for the Next Eight-Months
In cases where you are not involved in choosing of your team members, you can relate with the anxiety that comes with the uncertainty of not knowing who you will be teamed up with. Although everyone at KamiLimu is more than a family, we have to acknowledge that we are all not cut from the same cloth and a lot of care and deliberation has to be put in the grouping of mentees not only to encourage completion of the program but also to offer the best peer support for each mentee.
On this day, the furniture had already been pre-arranged in groups prior our arrival, a sheet containing our names and paired peer mentor stuck at each table. I remember moving from one table to another with anticipation, and crossing my fingers, and when I finally found my group, I could not stop smiling. I couldn’t have picked any better! No one could have. Though it was still early to judge how well we would fair with each other, I just knew that things were about to get very interesting because to everyone on my team, smiling was as natural as breathing!
2. Embracing and Celebrating of our Achievements
To encourage us to be confident and comfortable with our own achievements, Dr. Chao has this tradition where she would have us email her our wins, however small, and then during the following sessions, she would acknowledge, recognize and celebrate the moves we were making in front of the other mentees and mentors. After that, she would have each mentee share a brief on how they felt about their wins, and describe a little on what entailed the achievement with the rest of us.
Many of us struggled with embracing our wins in the guise of modesty, and what we never realized that instead of being ‘humble’, we were literally feeding our imposter syndromes and losing opportunities to inspire others.
The day the spotlight fell upon me was when I was confirmed as a Program Assistant for the Andela Learning Community Cohort 4.0. As usual, Dr. Chao called out my name and soon had me standing to share about the new role and what my duties would be. A lot of things changed for me in the few minutes that I was standing, everyone quiet and eager to hear what I was saying. It was one of my proudest moments. When my colleagues applauded and started congratulating me, I cannot describe the kind of joy that came over me. It was a major breakthrough as I found a new confidence, and the harsh mirror that I previously used to judge myself shattered. Even now, I still shine with the confidence that I grew on this day. No matter how bad things became later on, this new light never diminished.
3. The First Industrial Visit to Adrian Kenya
As part of our professional development activities, we would visit various industries just to interact with the work they did, and the employees who worked in them. Our first visit was to Adrian Kenya, of which I was hearing of for the first time, and it gave me a memory that soon became my guiding mantra through my budding career.
One of the employees who spoke gave us a simple exercise where he asked us to close our eyes, imagine our dream companies and define in what area in the company we would be most suitable to add value. This exercise that was supposed to be initially simple, turned out to be difficult for the most of us including myself. If anyone before could have asked me what company I wanted to work for, the answer would have been quick and easy; Google. But now, this man comes in and tells me to identify what area in Google would I add value and all over sudden I realize that I have no idea what I would do at Google! He went on to ask some of us what kind of value they would add at Adrian were they to be given an opportunity to work there and sadly, many responses were more of wild guesses. So you want to work at Safaricom? Fine. Where in Safaricom would you best fit?
This new angle at how we should perceive our dreams and goals showed that I had a lot of thinking to do and I did. Though it took me more than eight months, right now I know exactly what I would do at Google or whatever other company I look at. I have learnt to identify the kind of value I would contribute to any company and because of this, the experience I had at Adrian is one of my best at KamiLimu Mentorship program.
4. Public Speaking?
For those who know me, I am a very outgoing, talkative and a cheerful lady in nature and addressing a group of people or a huge crowd is not really a problem for me. At least this is what I thought until when my group members chose me to represent us for a public speaking assignment. First, I was required to write a speech, ensure there is a smooth flow of thoughts and of course, see to it that the transition from one thought to the other was both intentional and fluid. After that, I was to rehearse the speech well by myself and also in front of my teammates because I would not be allowed to read the speech during the actual representation. The only thing that would be permitted was a sticky note with your major talking points. In addition, whatever I had to say was to be said in two minutes or less. Otherwise, disqualified. Oh yes, this was a public speaking competition!
Whatever I thought I knew, I did not know. When my team’s name was called, the time it took to get to the stage and leave was a whole eternity. Longest less than three minutes of my life. Mind you before KamiLimu I had already engaged an audience of 300 attendees for close to thirty minutes. My speech began well but somewhere midway I mixed up the ideas and I could not remember what came before the other. I was ‘dancing’ on one spot as my legs felt like lead and it was clear to me that I had underestimated what it means to give an organized speech to an audience. Of course we did not take first place, but neither were we the last. I think we made it to number six out of the eleven teams and that meant something.
This was one of the major learning points and it truly challenged how I prepared for later speaking engagements. Even though I still mix up things, I have made quite some progress and I am proud of that. Furthermore, a friend took a video of the presentation and whatever that happened seems all funny now that I cannot help laughing at myself. Damn! KamiLimu is the best thing that ever happened to me!
5. Food! Food! Food!
It would be really unfair if I failed to mention how the snacks and lunch hours always made it to the top of the list of our favorite moments. Many of us if not all had an almost intimate relationship with the food at KamiLimu. Dr. Chao went out of her way to spoil as with treats. She understood that a growling stomach often resulted to low retention of the mind and she could not have her young ones retaining nothing. Actually on many Saturdays we would leave our homes very early in the morning and have breakfast at KamiLimu. There was this time she went to Spain and brought all of us chocolate. God bless her because on that day we discovered what real chocolate tasted like, lol.
6. Graduation Day
After eight long months we graduated on 19th October, 2019 at Metta, Nairobi. It was a truly spectacular day. All mentees, mentors, guests, and Dr. Chao donned beautiful attires which blended with the theme of the day, orange and grey theme. Everybody was extremely happy and high moods and it was easy to tell why. Going through the program was not a child’s play. It had demanded our sweat, tears and blood and finally after making it all through, we would now touch the finish line and receive our shining medals and well-deserved certificates. We were all in awe of one another like we really couldn’t believe that we had reached the end.
We celebrated those who had displayed extra zeal, commitment, hard work, togetherness and spirit of KamiLimu with awards and lots of cheers. I was awarded a gift for the show of commitment along with other three mentors, who like me, would travel for more than three hours just to get to the venue for the eight months. Trust you me that there is no more fulfilling feeling than the one of receiving an award for something that you really worked hard for.
Things I Wish I Had Not Done:
I am human and thus I am not perfect. Although I did everything I could to make sure that I was maximizing the golden opportunity at KamiLimu, there were those few moments when I allowed my shortcomings to hinder me from being my best self. I think it is very important that I share this not-so-good parts of the story because while they make valuable lessons for me, they may inspire someone to do better by learning from my mistakes.
- Giving Up Easily
Most of the times I am a fighter. I risk heartbreaks many a time because one of my mantras says, ‘There is nothing to lose by trying’. It was with this mentality that I found myself applying for a lot of opportunities while in the program. Unfortunately, I ended up getting a string of rejections that never seemed to end and while they were not the first to go through, the little confidence that I was rebuilding was being shredded each time one such email hit my inbox. I was so frustrated that I reached a point where I stopped trying all together. And this is the period I regret the most.
Furthermore I think what fueled my despair was the fact that everyone else seemed to be the getting those same opportunities. Yes, I was really happy for my friends but I could not stop wondering why my own journey seem to have stalled. I felt that I was not really learning anything.
What I realize now is that I gave up too soon. I threw in the towel when I thought the hurt could not get any worse. But the truth is, it hurt even worse after I stopped making those applications because along with my overwhelming sense of failure, I now had to deal with the regrets of ‘what ifs’ too.
2. Not Completing All the Assignments
There were several tasks that I never completed or submitted on time, while there some that I did not even attempt. And while I write this, I still feel ashamed for the times I did not go the extra mile to finish the given assignments. Although back then I would comfort myself that there was just so much that I could do in one day, now I only feel the dread of how much knowledge and valuable lessons that I missed out on. True that I had an insane schedule than most of the students, and perhaps even some of the mentees, but it was still no excuse and that I am not particularly proud of.
Finally;
Applying to KamiLimu was by far the best decision that I have ever made. I learnt so much, made mistakes, made new friends, I laughed, I cried, dealt with confusion, saw new places, wove new dreams, dropped many fears, overcame impostor syndrome, gained new skills and perfected a few others, ate Spanish chocolate, build paper towers and met new mentors and role models. There is so much that I did and would never wish that I did not live through any of those moments. KamiLimu changed my life and will positively impact my life for many years to come.
To wrap up this long story, I made it to be one of the nine peer mentors for the new cohort 5.0 and I am so excited to get the chance to impart all the lessons that I learnt as a mentee, while opening myself up for unimaginable opportunities to learn from them. I cannot wait to see what surprises 2020 holds at the KamiLimu Mentorship Program. We might create new magic tricks, who knows!
If you have loved this story, don’t forget to clap below and also share this article with your friends. If you are still in school, do consider to apply for Cohort 6.0 in 2021 and I guarantee you that your life will never be the same again!
