Mohammed, go to school, get the best education you can have but please have a skill it will be very useful to you in 5 or 10 years from now.
Read, learn and be inspired by this interview session with #UPGBiashara Entrepreneur, Mohamed Kawa. Follow us through his journey of discovery and impact!
What is your UPG story?
I love UPG! UPG is the first organization that made me realize that I am on the right path.
When I envisioned this dream, it was UPG opportunity ‘#UPGSustainability Leadership’ that I first saw on the internet and I applied. My first application was accepted and this was in 2021. Unfortunately, I had just got a new position at my work so I was not able to complete the training because I was focused on perfoming the tasks that came with it and to prove to my bosses that I am fit for the job.
In 2022, I saw UPG Biashara Entrepreneurship opportunity, I applied and got selected.
“Mohammed, congratulations. Among more than 500,000, (there was a number they mentioned) your application was…” I felt, wow, so there are people that are seeing things the way I do. This gave me and out of world validation to believe that I am on the right path.
From that moment, I exerted more pressure, and effort into my work, knowing that there are people interested in my vision, and that I am not alone. I became a UPG Biashara entrepreneur. The training was very helpful and is still very helpful to me.
I apply the lessons even in my professional career. UPG is a family to me and is very close to my heart, they have played a very huge role in my career. In that very year I graduated and got certified with Distinction. I also applied for the Diamonds Do Good Entrepreneurship Grant in UPG. Fortunately, I was selected as the top 20 finalist but on a day to the pitch event known as shark tank, I lost somebody very close to my heart so I was not at my ultimate best on the day for my pitch, consequently, I was not able to make the cut for last finalists. I hope to apply again and if by any chance I get selected, I am confident of going through.
This year, I applied again for UPG Sustainability Leadership, and behold, I got selected. This is why I say UPG is a family, they believe in my dreams. It’s in UPG that I have gained the Leadership and Entrepreneurship knowledge I have so far. I got selected recently for the Tony Elumelu Foundation and Entrepreneurship Program and I’m also on the Young African Leadership Training this year, thanks to these leadership and business ideas by UPG.
This same year, I also won on YALDA, which is also a leadership and business training in South Africa.
Ever since I met UPG, whatever I laid my hands on have yield dividends because UPG programmes our minds to be winners, no matter the situation.
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
I still see myself here in my country, eating the cassava, potato and all the body nourishing vegetables that I plant. That’s just for fun. On a serious note, it is good that I say it because at times like this, when most of the youth believe that they must leave Africa before they can do something useful. You can be here and then still succeed. It depends on how you do your thing.
My dream is to be able to create 200 or more employment opportunities for youths through Helzee Farms. And I think the way things are going, I will be able to do that soonest, because I only need more machines, more funding opportunities to expand the farms.
I want to be able to have more improved equipment and machines to be able to improve local content, get a more sophisticated factory where people, youth especially, women, can be employed. I want to see myself as one of the people that our country or my community can reference when it comes to the topic of food security.
I want to see myself more learned in leadership and entrepreneurship.
I want to have more technical knowledge, especially relating to my business so that I can continue to create positive impact in my country and in the world as a whole while still being in Sierra Leone
We can stay here in Sierra Leone and then share our business ideas or talk to people or organizations overseas who can help us. No place like home. If you are doing your thing right at home, you will always have an opportunity to travel overseas, if that is what you seek. Some people or organizations will even pay for you to travel.
What’s your greatest fear in life?
My greatest fear in life is not starting something that I’m so passionate about, or fear of failure. Whatever I know that I am passionate about, that I want to do, I do it.
What’s the weirdest thing that has happened to you, or what’s your most embarrassing moment?
It was in my final year in secondary school, I was to conduct assembly, but I left home very late, and it was just on time that I arrived in school. Fatefully, the moment I stepped in the school gate, the heel of my shoe ripped off, and every attention was on me. So the moment everyone saw me, I got stucked because I was scared I will be mocked and that’s definitely what happened but then I kept my face, I still went there to play my part.
20 seconds into my presentation, I was still not confident because I was traumatized and embarrassed. Not until I saw them nodding to what I was saying, that I gained some confidence and then completed my presentation. The story lasted for like a month. People talk about it as if it has never happened to anybody.
In another incident, I was mounting the podium to represent my school in a debate then I tripped and fell.
“Woaoh!” that was coming from the other school. They said I was scared and nervous, and that was why I fell.
When have you ever felt so proud of yourself?
When I started Helzee Farms of course. I’ve actually been so proud of myself since I was a kid. Like I said earlier, when I was a kid, I used to give my mum money to cook for us. Then I used to hold classes in my community and parents gave me money and so I used to give it to my mom for feeding. That’s not what boys of my age do in a normal situation. But I really became very proud of myself when I started Helzee Farms. Seeing people believing and picking interests in what I’m doing is awesome.
Should we talk about how I’m making other people happy by giving them jobs, making them provide for their families, how I am reducing the problems of food insecurity, how women in the rural areas are so happy whenever I go there to buy their palm kernel, which before now, they used to burn to ashes. So when I started Helzee Farms, I think that will go down in history as my proudest moment in life.
What’s the most interesting thing about you?
People see me and they think I don’t talk but I am really a talkative when I am around people that I am comfortable with.
What would you say to the younger version of yourself?
Mohammed, go to school, get the best education you can have but please have a skill it will be very useful to you in 5 or 10 years from now.
What is the advice you will give?
Go for it, in the beginning, not everyone will believe or support your dreams. Don’t count on people very close to you, not that they don’t want you to succeed, but I have confirmed that strangers will be the first to accept you publicly and give you reason to love what you are doing the more.
Believe in yourself, don’t loose sight of your vision no matter how people rebuke you.
When I started Helzee farms, the first picture I posted was that of my Aloe vera plant and people very close to me were calling my business Helzee flower, they were trying to discourage and demotivate me. I know sarcasm when I see one. Don’t look at or listen to these people. Take their word as something that will triger all your powers within.
And please don’t be a wanna be, make sure you know what you are trying to do very well. Avoid mediocrity in all that you do because people are not going to support you if they are not convinced in what you are doing it. Try to seek more knowledge and be the best.
Don’t say there are one or two people in this , I am not going to do it, the sky is big enough for all of us to survive, start your own, but make it unique!
Interviewed by #EmpoweredVoices Editorial team.
©EmpoweredVoices
