You may know her today as a social media influencer, owing to the content she shares on Instagram on marriage, motherhood, self-love, and faith. But before all this, Erica Mbanda’s career was on a paediatric path.

Born and raised in the US, Mbanda, a mother of two was pursuing a psychology and sociology major at the university, which she intended to use as a stepping stone to being a paediatrician. However, that was halted three years in, to chase something she was more passionate about.

Her zeal to address and find solutions to women’s issues inspired her to pursue a Master’s in counselling, which she completed in 2011. She then proceeded to work in the US before moving back to Rwanda in 2013.

Initially, the plan was to try to establish a life in her homeland for two years, and if that didn’t work out, it was back to America. But she fell in love with the country and decided to stay.

Starting out in Rwanda

As time went by, Mbanda found work in Rwanda, but making friends at first wasn’t easy. Through her small circle, and together with a friend, she started a home bakery and hosted get-togethers, which gave her the opportunity to meet more people and expand her network.

As she navigated the job market, Mbanda realised the need for a ‘work-love’ balance, which can loosely be defined as balancing time between a job for necessity and a job for the love of it. As she carried out her daytime job, she spared time for her passion which at the time was her home bakery, Mukati na Butta.

Living a life that lets you divide the luxury of time between obligation and desire was exhilarating at first, but she lost that balance the more she persisted, and that’s when she knew she had to let one thing go, and in 2016 the home bakery was on the chopping block.

Employee to employer

Two of the most common reasons people voluntarily leave their jobs are because something better comes along or they just aren’t passionate about what they do anymore. For Mbanda, however, leaving her position as country manager of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator was saying goodbye to something she loved.

"I loved what I was doing and I love that I could visibly see the impact being made, and that is very important for me when I take on a job,” says.

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Four months after welcoming her daughter Selah into the world, the then first-time mother returned to work albeit struggling with postpartum depression and imposter syndrome (defined as a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments) through the first three months of her return.

"I felt like I wasn’t the leader I was before I had my daughter and I felt like I wasn’t as capable,” she says.

In 2020 when the lockdown was enforced, Mbanda looked at it as a blessing in disguise. She recalls being excited about spending more time with her daughter, and the opportunity to pause and reset was an added bonus.

During this time she indulged in a lot of self-reflection which eventually led to the reopening of the bakery. Reopening the business enabled her to be a working mom and have ample time to spend with the children, which according to her was the best possible outcome. Yes, there was the question of losing an entire income and its impact on the family, but she took that leap of faith nonetheless.

"The impulsive decision to merge my passion and work has given me more fulfilment than ever before,” Mbanda says about her experience.

Instagram influencing

Mbanda’s Instagram page is a collage of lifestyle/mothering/career/mental health tips often coupled with deeply personal experiences that have resonated with so many. She recalls enjoying the operational aspect of things and never wanting to be the face of her projects for years, and by redefining her page she wanted to end the streak of only ever being on the receiving end of inspirational content.

Besides the lessons she learnt from content consumption, hearing other people’s stories inspired her and made her feel seen, and God, she says, gave her the push to start sharing her own.

"I wasn’t intentional about what I shared in the beginning, and getting married got me to open up a bit more. I turned to a lot of content that resonated with what I was going through,” she says.

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But she was yet to encounter someone who was open about their struggles, which pushed her to be more open about her own. Doing this, she says, has been very therapeutic and she hopes to have the same impact on someone in the same boat. Based on the feedback she’s been getting and how much her platform has grown over time, that is a goal that she continually achieves.