28-year-old Bertin Ganza Kanamugire’s passion for books and reading is what pushes him to encourage as many youth as possible to embrace reading culture. Growing up, he wasn’t even a fan of reading until he stumbled on a book titled “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie while in S5 in 2013—it has been an interest ever since. “That book changed my life because growing up I wasn’t happy, but after reading the book, I learnt to seek the funny side of life and my life changed completely. I then decided to use reading to change other people’s lives,” he says. He started a local initiative in 2017 dubbed Afflatus Africa, which stands for Aspirational Federation of Forward-looking Leaders who are Acting to Uplift Societies. This year, Kanamugire turned the initiative into a Pan-African social enterprise that inspires youth and enables them to learn from elders and high achievers. He also says that the social enterprise equips young people with professional and soft skills through trainings, mentorships, and career guidance. “We connect young people to volunteering, internships, and job opportunities through networking events, linkages, and referrals and mostly, assist them to unveil and liberate their potential. We lead social-economic transformation through our flagship programmes; ‘Read for Change’, ‘Mentor for Change’, and ‘Learn for Change’,” Kanamugire says. He adds that the venture has been work-in-progress as the past five years have been a journey of receiving and accepting the mission, understanding the vision, setting goals, refining programmes and projects, planning and setting up the foundation by transitioning from just a mere Facebook page to an organisation that is building a lasting and impactful legacy. He believes that he and his team have done more than what they thought they could do with the little they had, but still have a long journey to go. Kanamugire says that this has been a life-changing experience of exhibiting and liberating his potential, understanding both the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation, discovering their gifts, failing, learning, and refining, inspiring and impacting lives. “We started with a Facebook page, expanded to an initiative, where we commenced organising events in different parts of the country, reginal events and enlarged our horizon by establishing clubs in different universities and chapters in other countries starting from Uganda in 2019 and now, we have become a pan-African social enterprise (with membership-based community benefits). “One of our programmes ‘Reading for Change’ won the 2019 Global Social Thinker Contest organised by Ashoka Africa and British Council,” he says. Kanamugire highlights that reading has plenty of benefits, from improving cognitive abilities and expanding vocabulary, to strengthening ability to think, reason critically, and solve problems, and so forth. Achievements This year, Kanamugire says that he introduced a system where members will benefit from different services, while non-members will be charged to profit from programmes and activities that are not open to the public. Members will be meeting weekly for a motivational or inspirational talk known as the ‘Dreamer to Achiever’ to learn from the journey of high achievers. Kanamugire says they are yet to resume the reading competition and the weekly book talks. The team has started a programme for six to 12 year olds, and has also introduced ‘Successors’ Academy’ for teenagers to discover their talents, prepare them for work, as well as teach them about financial responsibility at a young age. He says that the organisation has also started ‘Pass it On’ which is a programme that links young people to professionals and experienced people in their fields of interest for a one-year period of mentorship or career guidance. His plan is to expand ‘Reading for Change’ to other African countries. Kanamugire says that the organisation has been able to grow through love and caring for the future of the continent, and aiming to be a kind, gentle custodian for Africa and all the people. He adds that he is doing everything in his power to help new African leaders emerge, develop and grow in an honourable, ethical and accountable way, and counting and hearing every voice from his teammates and beneficiaries. “We hope that we can help achieve healthy and sustainable change for the benefit of Africa and the world, and become the source of courage and motivation. This is why we keep working consistently hard, smart and learn and improve every day.” Challenges Kanamugire says that building a committed and motivated team is a problem. This is because many people want jobs, but very few of them want to actually work. This means that many people are interested but not committed. He adds that as a developing country, many people don’t yet understand the benefits of investing in informal learning and most young people are not interested in educative programmes or personal development activities, and some parents don’t give value to extracurricular activities. A beneficial course Grace Igiraneza, says that she first heard of Afflatus Africa in 2019 from friends, but what caught her attention was the fact that it focuses on promoting the culture of reading, and that was the kind of environment she needed. She notes that she kept following their activities though she wasn’t a member. “At the start of 2020, I was in need of a job and believed that attending Afflatus events consistently would help in getting effective connections. I attended with the goal of approaching one of the speakers whom I saw on the flyer though I knew none of them. From the same event, I connected with one of the speakers. I then requested to volunteer at the organisation, an opportunity I was given.” She says that after two weeks of volunteering, she was hired as a full-time employee and worked for almost two years. She was able to connect with like-minded people, and improved her interest in reading books. “It’s the best learning and growing platform,” she adds. Juvens Kyle Asifiwe, project and events coordination director of Afflatus Africa, says his goal in 2018 was to develop the community’s engagement skills, which he was struggling to do. Joining Afflatus Africa in May 2018 was the first step to his desired goal. Organising different projects and programmes with Afflatus Africa helped him to discover new talents and capacities. Asifiwe adds that he was able to build strong connections and participate in regional events like ‘YouLead Africa’. He was also a delegate at the East African Youth Parliament, as well as a member of the East African Youth Peace Network, and was linked to job opportunities. “Leadership, flexibility, teamwork and many more soft skills are among the strong impacts of being a part of Afflatus Africa. Whenever you are looking for self-development, finding a true group, place or organisation to be, it should be considered, especially for young people,” he says.
