Okumu: Love for education saw him rise to ranks

“So, from Senior One to Senior Six, it was a very tumultuous experience. I suffered anxiety when the school administration told me that I could not sit for Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) exams because I had school fees arrears,” he recounts.

The young man pleaded but it all fell on deaf ears. Okumu went to the district headquarters and spoke to the District Education Officer (DEO), who was surprised by the learner’s resolve.
He rode him to the school, and instructed the administration to let him sit exams and give him a grace period to clear the fees,if not,withhold his results upon release.

Hustling
Although he was born in Gulu, owing to the insurgency, his father, who was an employee of Uganda Prisons at the time, relocated the family to Masindi.
The entrepreneurial spirit was born during his hustle. When he returned to Gulu, he convinced his younger brother, who was working for Shell fuel station, to lend him some money. Okumu had spotted an opportunity to sell refreshments to travellers from Moyo and South Sudan.

His target was the passenger buses that made pit stops at the fuel station to fuel as travelers bought refreshments, stretched and took bathroom breaks.
Okumu got fridges from soft drink companies. He then persuaded bus drivers, one by one to stop by the fuel station to get a bottle of soda and allow passengers a few minutes before proceeding to their destinations. It worked out as he had envisioned.

“A fleet of buses would stop by the fuel station and that made business sense to me and sales for my big brother, whose job appraisal must have had some colourful grades,”says Okumu.
That is how he made tuition for Advanced Level (A-Level). He quickly adds:

“I would on average sell 13 crates of soda every day and earn a profit off each. After high school, I bought a motorcycle, which I would hire for Shs7,000 per day.”
He learnt how to drive but was denied a permit because he looked too young. That did not stop him from driving, albeit illegally.

“I did not have to overly convince my brother to drive his car. I would sit be- hind the steering wheel and help my big brother occasionally pick Daily Monitor newspapers from Karuma and distribute them in parts of northern Uganda,” says Okumu.
After Senior Six, he enrolled for certificates in logistics, and financial accounting. When he later on got a job, he realised he needed to upgrade to stay competitively relevant.

Jobs set in

His brother’s car was hired by USAID and Okumu got a job in the oil and gas sector. Confined to one place, he got bored and started applying for jobs. In 2015, he got three job offers.
“Surprisingly, Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) had the lowest pay offer of all the jobs offers I received. One of the organisations was posting me to Kisoro in southwest Uganda, which I did not like, another to Lamwo in northern Uganda, which I loathed too. My Interest was to stay in Kampala and that is what UTB had on the table plus a salary of Shs640,000. I settled for UTB,” Voila! Okumu joined UTB as a driver.

Determined

Today, Okumu is the quality assurance officer UTB.He looks back at his journey of triumph over adversity. He emphasises that joining the agency as a driver was not enough and upgrading his academic credentials catapulted him to other ranks.

During the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, when work came to a stand- still but education institutions were allowed to continue operating, he took advantage and enrolled for and completed a Bachelor of Social Works and Social Sciences (SWASA) at Uganda Christian University (UCU) in Mukono. He has recently concluded his postgraduate diploma from Uganda Management Institute (UMI) and hopes to write research to attain a Master's degree.

“When you are working and still in school, there are many demands, including work and family. It also has financial implications. I had to acquire loans, especially during the examination period. I would do whatever work came my way.”

Fighting on

Some of the menial jobs he had to do to fend for himself, included being a porter at building sites, fetching water for neighbours, running mobile retail business from which he made a smallprofit, and more.
“I would study half day and go to work in the afternoon,” he says. My ambition was to achieve my desired goal. At the end of it all, God also helped me and I passed,” Okumu recounts his education journey.

The balancing act

The father of four says it is tough balancing work, studies and family because each component is important, but demanding .
So, he has had to find ways and means of dedicating time to each without letting the other suffer.
Like that, he has had to halt his passion for watching football, which has meant leaving a certain circle of friends.
He is confident that he will reconnect with them when the schedules become more flexible.

He has also had to adjust to the new work environment; from being a driver whose job took him to almost all corners of the country and beyond, to handling paperwork, preparing work frameworks, mobilizing resources, stakeholder engagement and more.

“The beauty with this current job is that at least one can afford time during weekends whereas the previous job was almost on-call; night, day, and weekend stint. I utilise the weekends to study and be with my family,” he beams.

Precious times

But that is not to say he did not enjoy his previous job. He is glad to have visited places around Uganda and also crossed to Kenya, Rwanda and DR Congo.

Okumu recollects: “I crossed to Kenya during the Imbalu festival. We went for a radio talk show and that time, we received numbers for the Imbalu festival like never before. We engaged the governor of Bungoma and the people. They opened borders for people to attend the Imbalu festival. That is one valuable thing I feel I added to that festival in 2018.”

Also, the job brought him face to face with people he refers to as important at big conferences where he bred an idea to start his own tours and travel company at some point in the future.

Trekking the mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and forest in south western Uganda, for the first time, remains his best memory. The gorillas had given birth, so they went to cover the story. He was so close to gorillas for the first time.

“I sat and the gorillas were on my back. I was both scared and excited. When I posted the pictures, people were wondering how I was able to get so close to the fierce apes. They wondered if I was safe. Many people have not been able to interact with gorillas. That was in Buhoma with the Habinyanja gorilla family in Bwindi in 2017,”he further narrates. Then, the night fell and the chill came. One of the guides had a warm shower but felt the
skin-biting chill. He was, however, glad to have found hot water to help him deal with the chilly room and bed.

Okumu feels elated when they share their memories of visiting national parks such as Murchison Falls where they excitedly name the wild and free birds and animals. 
“One discipline some people I interacted with learnt from me is that they are not allowed to litter outside to spoil the environment. When you are in the car, do not litter anything on the road,” he discloses.

At times, his children would call him when they see something interesting about Uganda on the National Geographic channel.

Two cents 

He concludes by saying he is glad to have stuck to seeking education without which his story could perhaps be different or his life taken another turn.

“I have learnt that what is called failure is actually giving up in life but if you do not give up, you will always make it. Imagine if I had given up, where would I be? Some of my peers who gave up are old and doing badly.
So, always aim higher, know where you want to be and you will surely be there,” he concludes.