I was never a Tech enthusiast, a bit curious, yes, but that was about it. You could say I was more of a gadget person...I love gadgets. I also didn't fancy engineering. Health, and more specifically Medicine, is my thing.
Rewind to last year when I saw the advert put out by my then church for youths and young adults to get upskilled in Web Dev, AI, UI/UX and Digital Marketing. It was a no-brainer, a week-long training? I jumped at it. I jumped at it because;
I had no job and had not been doing anything serious till then other than helping a friend handle the social media accounts for his startup.
Figured it was about time I added something to my CV since I only have a bachelors degree and have not been able to add anything else.
Anything I could do to get myself well positioned in the job market as a person living with a disability was welcome by me. Reason being that I had not been able to get a good paying job since finishing the university a decade ago, save for the time a friend and former coursemate gave me a job at her startup as a social media and communications personnel for a year and half (she taught me everything I know about graphics design and social media management) and the earlier mentioned one.
There was a test to qualify which entailed questions on tech and the 4th industrial revolution and our understanding of it. Actually, there were a bunch of questions and it took well over 30 minutes to answer. A few weeks later I got an SMS to notify me of the fact that I passed the test and had qualified to attend the Digital Skill Up, which is its name. It was a state-wide affair and I was elated and looked forward to it.
The first day of the five days came around and after some planning and help from family and a friend, I attended. Being the only person in a wheelchair was not funny but I had gotten used to being the only one in a wheelchair in so many settings that it was easy to brave. Halfway through the day I was beginning to wonder if I made a wise decision by choosing Web Development because it was so foreign to me but I made it through the day and was back the next day. By the second day, I had gotten the hang of things and become eager to learn which gained me group captain and assistant class lead.
On Friday, which happened to be the last day, the project we were all assigned to do in groups (to build a website using HTML and CSS) was finalised. I could not believe that together with my team and a little help from our instructors, we had built a website Ph Bole Hub. We were to present our project that Friday but due to unforeseen circumstances we could not and it was moved to the next day. We all came that Saturday expecting to make individual group presentations, of which I was to be one of the speakers since my group nominated me to present our project as the group captain, but time constraints struck and things had to change. Instead of four presentations from each class, we were to have one presentation per class and wonder of wonders I was chosen to represent the Web Development class. I could not believe it! It was bad enough as a group but now as a class? Me that has stage fright. Somehow I found the courage to and did a pretty good presentation for the whole class.
From there onwards, I kept looking for opportunities to advance in Web Development. The NGO that trained us had promised to give us advanced classes but were unable to, however, some months down the line, a friend told me about a foundation whose purpose is to train persons living with a disability in tech and get them gainfully employed. I did not think twice, I applied and got enrolled into AltSchool Africa and TalentQL and <the rest they say is history but I say that it is the story for another day.