It’s Mother’s Day, and I cannot fathom attempting to blog about “The Adventures of an African Social Entrepreneur” without acknowledging the one person who makes it all possible: my mother, Loy Awat Obote.
Traveling, volunteering, and social entrepreneurship are really hard, and quite frankly, sometimes I wonder how and if I would be able to do what I do without her being there to catch me when I fall.
Attempting to catalyze growth, to go your own way, to change the status quo, is not for the faint-hearted. It takes a toll mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially, and it requires you to dig deep into the recesses of your being to keep going.
However, I have to admit that I am luckier than most because I have a good support system to keep me going. For today, I’m not going to just leave it blankly at “Support System.”
I don’t want to be like one of those motivational speakers who somehow started out by selling one shoe and now miraculously owns half a city block.
I’m going to go deeper and clearly articulate what my support system means.
30 minutes to 1 hour phone calls to my mother every other day. If it was a hard day, trust me, she heard about it first.
For the three years as I built the icreate project, my very first social enterprise, I never incurred any rental expense. I was given the grace to build, fail, and build again.
Unlike many people my age, I still receive a World Remit Deposit Notification from my mother twice, sometimes thrice a month, which helps with all the traveling I have to do.
My mother also buys most of the things I need, like a car, clothing, shoes, fragrances, electrical appliances, homeware, iPhone, iPad. Sometimes, I think she goes a bit overboard. I am still trying to figure out why I own a toast holder (And no, it’s not a normal plate; it’s the thing where you put the toast after it comes out of the toaster).
I wanted to be painfully honest and religiously transparent about the pitfalls of building social enterprises, about traveling, volunteering, and about living a life of service with the hope that someone who doesn’t have the same support can understand the sacrifices and better equip themselves to thrive.
My support system is what has enabled me to travel, to make painful financial losses, and yet still come out with some semblance of sanity. My support system is what has helped me to continue to build, to connect, and look for more effective ways to create meaningful impact in society.
As social entrepreneurs, we need to pace ourselves, nurture ourselves, and give ourselves fuel to explore, thrive, and perform. For the world would be far worse off in our absence.
My mother and I are oddly in the same line of work. She works to improve the livelihoods of a community for a local authority borough in London. I think I caught the travel bug from her and she has visited more than 10 countries across the world. Watch me crush her record in the next few months.
Happy Mother’s Day!
This is wonderful to know 👌🏿