From Setbacks to Sales: Angela’s Path to Self-Employment
If you walk through Kibwezi’s market in Makueni County, Kenya, you will spot a shop with neat stacks of electronics and household products. The hand-painted sign above reads Angela’s Comeback Electronics & Malimali.
For 25-year-old Angela and her three-year-old daughter, the shop is more than a business. It’s a pathway to greater stability and a means to move forward on her own terms.
Angela is the second-born in a family of seven children. She left school in secondary to help her mother cover household costs. She tried her hand at small businesses to generate an income, selling charcoal, then cutting watermelons and tending a small plot of land. Each attempt taught her something, but the small gigs were challenging. Weekly loan repayments kept her under pressure. If sales struggled, the next week would already start behind.
Then, a friend told her about Educate!’s livelihood bootcamp. After repeated attempts to run a business without steady success, Angela was eager to learn strategies that could help her build something sustainable. Angela completed the six-week bootcamp with the support of Maureen, her Educate! mentor and trainer, and found the sessions re-ignited her spark as a budding entrepreneur.
Educate!’s livelihood bootcamps are designed to support girls and young women unable to complete secondary education with the skills to build livelihoods. Through skills training, hands-on activities, and individualized support, young people develop the knowledge, mindset, and skills to pursue economic opportunity and increase earnings within their local labor market.
For Angela, learning within the bootcamp enabled her to immediately navigate her economic realities, providing lessons on bookkeeping, customer service, communication, and daily savings habits. “I wanted to start a business a long time ago,” Angela says, “but the Educate! bootcamp showed me how to find a good spot, talk to customers, and keep saving.”
After graduating, Angela felt confident to pursue a new business plan. Leveraging her learnings, she raised capital by selling a goat, chickens, ducks, and some charcoal. Recognizing a need in her community for basic electronics, she used the funds to invest in new products and general household goods. The selection matched what people around her were constantly asking for: affordable, everyday items. “I knew even a small stock for my business could grow if I served customers well,” she says.
She opened her shop, along a busy footpath she identified and soon found a steady routine. Within a few weeks, the shop began to bring in around 1,500 KES (~$12 USD) profit per day. Angela used the profits to restock and enroll her daughter in preschool, which provided her with a predictable schedule for the shop. With each passing day that she greeted customers, answered questions, and recorded sales, her confidence grew.
Today, Angela’s newfound resilience is helping her navigate the challenges that come with owning a business. When her stock ran low, she sought out additional work to bridge the gap. “Just persevere. Don’t give up when it gets tough,” she says to others interested in launching a business venture.
Angela now talks about the future with focus. She aims to rebuild her inventory and then expand to more outlets. She’s already outlined next steps: Restock, keep saving daily, and stay close to customers – using records to track and guide what she buys next. She also hopes to mentor other young people who want to learn how to start small and grow steadily.
“I’m proud to have my own shop. I want other youth to learn, just like I did.” – Angela
Behind all of this is a vision Angela has for her daughter’s future. She wants to expand her opportunities, studying at the highest level she chooses, launching a business, or choosing a different path entirely. One sale at a time, Angela has translated learning into earning, highlighting the transformations that occur when young women can achieve with the right tools and support.