Aine T

MY SON RETURNED FROM THE UK WITH A MASTER’S DEGREE. THREE YEARS LATER, I WAS STILL GIVING HIM POCKET MONEY Andrew had always made his mother proud. Good schools in Uganda, a degree, then a Master’s in Marketing and Strategy from the UK. Tuition. Accommodation. Air tickets. Pounds painfully converted from Uganda shillings. When he graduated, the photographs travelled through every family WhatsApp group. Mission accomplished. Three years later, Andrew was 31 and his mother was still giving him pocket money. He lived rent-free in a family apartment. She had bought him a Toyota Premio. Sometimes Mummy even provided fuel. Yet Andrew wasn’t lazy. Every morning he searched for jobs: Marketing Manager. Business Development Manager. Strategy Officer. He applied and applied. Once he was offered a sales job. “Mummy, after everything I studied in Britain, you want me to become a salesman?” Then his mother met Uncle Rwamiti. “My son has failed to get a proper job.” Uncle Rwamiti asked about the apartment, car, fuel and pocket money. Then he said: “Madam, perhaps your son doesn’t have an unemployment problem. He may have an activation problem.” A few days later he met Andrew at Horizons Café. “What can you do?” “I have a Master’s degree in Marketing and Strategy.” “I didn’t ask what you studied. I asked what you can do.” Silence. “Can you help somebody sell more tomatoes?” Andrew laughed. “I am serious. Can you help a small manufacturer find customers?” “Yes.” “Then perhaps you are not unemployed. You are waiting for somebody to give your knowledge permission to work.” Uncle Rwamiti gave him an assignment: stop applying for jobs for two weeks. Find five businesses with sales problems. Choose one problem. Solve a small piece of it. Andrew found a small furniture manufacturer with beautiful products and terrible marketing. He improved the photographs, created a catalogue, followed up old enquiries and contacted potential customers. Within weeks, an order came. At month’s end the owner handed Andrew UGX 500,000. Andrew called Uncle Rwamiti excitedly. “They paid me!” “Congratulations. Your Master’s degree has finally crossed immigration.” That UGX 500,000 mattered because somebody other than Mummy had paid Andrew for value created. One client became two. Two became four. He made mistakes. He learned. He stopped introducing himself by where he studied and started asking: “What problem can I solve?” Eighteen months later, his mother sent him UGX 300,000. Andrew returned it. “Why have you sent the money back?” “Mummy, I’m okay. I don’t need pocket money anymore.” His mother cried. Her son wasn’t rich. He had become independent. Later she asked Uncle Rwamiti: “What did you do to my son?” “Nothing. I helped him discover that a degree is not a job.” “And what changed?” “Problem. Solution. Action. Trust. Repeat.” Perhaps some educated adult children don’t need another degree, connection or envelope from Mummy. They need help crossing the bridge between knowing something and making something happen with what they know. That bridge is Knowledge Activation. Petero Wamala (Dr) Making sense of change through ethical storytelling