Youth and the quest to make quick money

Self-made billionaire Deogratius Kilawe. PHOTO I FILE

What you need to know:

As for parents, they too view their child, who’s now at the university, as an adult. As such, they expect your role to change from a dependent child to a self-sustaining one – a feat that isn’t always easy to achieve, or one that can be achieved overnight.

Throughout our high school years, we often view ourselves as kids who are still dependent on our parents. Then when we graduate to university, that’s when things start to change. There’s this subconscious feeling of adulthood that creeps its way into your brain. We start to have anxieties over how life will be after we graduate.

As for parents, they too view their child, who’s now at the university, as an adult. As such, they expect your role to change from a dependent child to a self-sustaining one – a feat that isn’t always easy to achieve, or one that can be achieved overnight.

Soon after completing college, the pressure to get a job and make money is often high among graduates. The need and desire to improve upon your life is always at a peak. Things like buying a car, renting your own house and at the same time supporting your family are all part of worries that linger once you graduate.

However, despite the effort by the government to create jobs from time to time, most graduates stay far above the age of 34 years before getting their first formal job, while the unemployment rate remains high.

But even for those who manage to get jobs soon after graduating, there is still this desire to make quick money in order to see prompt changes. As the job market goes, first-time entrants don’t usually benefit a high pay-day, this means that the pressure to make huge sums of money remains consistent, whether employed or not.

Those who’ve managed to secure jobs find themselves in a quest for ways through which they can make extra money through the channels that they have, a situation that often times leads to bad results.

Sandra Lameck, 28, a holder of a degree in Banking and Finance, knows too well how it feels to have high expectations of landing a well-paying job after graduating, only to be met with a brutal reality. “While still in college I always had it in mind that I would land a good job at a big financial institution soon after graduating,” she says, adding; “However, it took me nearly three years after graduating before I could land my first job as a loan officer in a small microfinance institution. At first I thought that with my degree, I would be met with plenty of job offers.”

The struggle to find a job made Sandra realise that becoming rich doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process that requires hardwork and determination. “I know of some friends who went to college and had the desire to become rich so they resorted to doing things that compromise their dignity.

The situation is far worse for us women because once we have the urge to become successful, there are a lot of temptations that surround us,” she says.

A 2014 integrated Labour Force Survey (ILFS) shows the income from employment based on the level of education, it shows that paid employees with university level of educational have the highest mean monthly income of Sh1,000,626 followed by self-employed with Sh 895,717 and agricultural employees earning the least at Sh458,984.

The paid income groups reveals that, two -thirds which is 67.8 per cent of paid employees earn less than Sh300,000 mean monthly income with females 69.5 per cent having a slightly higher proportion than males 67.1 percent. It is also observed that, less than 5 per cent of paid employees earn mean-monthly income above Sh900,000.

With such a mean monthly income, room for temptations is opened to some young graduates who have the desire to accumulate quick wealth in order to achieve certain things in life.

But according to Deogratius Kilawe, a successful businessman, youth particularly young graduates, who wish to become successful, need to learn step by step the skills they will need to achieve the level of success they desire.

“Yes the pressure can be high, but nothing comes easy in life, we have to learn the right principles of how to be successful. It’s like building a house, we start with the foundation .Unfortunately most people, especially the youth fail to reach their goals because they want to do everything at once. The secret is to stay in focus,” he says.

According to Deogratius, for youth to tackle the pressure to get rich quickly, they also need to sharpen their thinking abilities so that they don’t end up confused. “They need to set targets; this includes learning to wake up early while the world is still asleep. They also need to have the ability to plan what they need to do with their lives well in advance, unfortunately majority of them have let the world and the system plan for them what they are supposed to do.They are forgetting that what worked for one person cannot work for another,” says the self-made billionaire.

Deogratius, who now owns four companies, worked diligently to become a billionaire with his companies’ turnover being Sh2.7 billion annually. Through his companies Mikono Speakers, Focus Outdoor, Excel Management and Outsourcing and Excel Maids, he has managed to employ a total of more than 100 young employees.

With the passion to start his own business, while he was in his second year at Mzumbe University where he was pursuing a degree in Accounting and Finance, in 2008 he came up with an idea to establish a company that will help fill the gap for human resource in Africa as he wanted to transform the public into better human capital that will bring positive change to the economy.

He and three other young people, who later left the company, set up Mikono Speakers from scratch to train staff from various institutions. The company grew and they were able to venture into other countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and USA.

In Tanzania alone Mikono Speakers has trained more than 350,000 people. So far his company has been able to serve more than 27 firms.

He tells the youth, particularly young graduates that nothing is impossible so long as one has the inner will to work hard without feeling ashamed. He says youth need to pick a leaf of inspiration from children; this is because children have the ability to do anything without feeling ashamed.

On his part, Lecturer from University of Dar es Salaam, Faraja Kristomus, says there are a number of reasons that put young graduates under pressure to make quick money.

“The existence of class within our society plays a big role in making young people wish to have the rich kind of life without knowing what it takes to achieve such a life,” explains the lecturer. He also noted that when expectations in life go beyond the reality, it can become a problem.

He went further saying that the issue of peer pressure can also cause a lot of pressure amongst graduates, especially in instances where your former college-mate is doing way better in life than you currently are.

He says community has a responsibility to ensure that they give full parental support to youth starting from primary level up to when they are in college. He further notes that college students need to be given life coaching skills and they also need to learn that hard work pays. Employers also need to give orientation to new employees so that they understand the does and don’ts and what is the expected behavior.

Giving out advice about the best way possible that youth can adopt to make money in a decent way, financial expert Frank Tarimo, says most graduates do not stick to reality when they envision what their lives will look like after graduating. They need to know that things start from the ground up. “They shouldn’t be greedy and want to be successful at quick pace,” he says.

Mohammed Dewji, Owner and President of MeTL Group posted in one of his social media pages that “the biggest mistake I see people making today is wanting INSTANT success, QUICK money, and RAPID fame. It’s not realistic, and it will never keep you happy. You can’t focus when you’re impatient! Remember the saying“What comes easy won’t last, what lasts won’t come easy.”