Stories from EQWIP HUBs Tanzania - Albert

Here at the Mwanza HUB, we’ve had a bit of lull in posting stories from our graduates and sharing their successes. However, we are back now with a story of Albert Joseph who is running a recycled metal fabrication shop with his colleagues. Albert is 28 years old and graduated from EQWIP HUBs earlier this year.

Albert and his colleagues have an outdoor shop in the Pasiensi district of Mwanza which is where many of our other graduates have their businesses. Their shop produces charcoal cookers (known as jicos), chicken feeders, and they make an effort to produce anything that a client wants. That is how they began to produce jicos at their shop; a client called them and asked if they could produce them. At that time they could not, but they found a sample, and they studied it to determine what they would have to do to develop their own and now it is a core of their business.

Albert’s life has been changed for the better by EQWIP HUBs. He hails from Arusha, a city to the Southeast of Mwanza where he lived with his parents. While there he spent his days sleeping as he was undecided about what he wanted for his future.

“…you get confused, the more you find yourself in trouble. The police coming around here and there. But ever since I have been to EQWIP HUBs, I’m not living with my parents now, I’m living with other people. I take them for parents and I am part of their family, it’s like a whole other family. I had a fight with my parents before my father died last year and the greatest thing is ever since I was not communicating to my mother but ever since I went to EQWIP HUBs, it changes that the people around me have been the same. They gave information to my mother and she started calling me now we contact each other “hello, son how are you doing?, hello mom how was your day?”.”

Albert believes that anyone who is having doubts about EQWIP HUBs should know that EQWIP HUBs taught him to think positive.

“I don’t think negative. I don’t think if I will stand out in the road and get a stone and fall down, that’s not how I think. How I think, is I’m going to pass here, I’m going to do what I intend to do, and I’m going to be back here successfully. That is how I do everything I do. Thinking positive, negative is not part of me anymore.”

Albert advises future entrepreneurs to be aware of change. Things change; sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Tanzania gained independence in 1961; and at that time you could trade some grain for a cow by bartering. Nowadays, it’s all cash but it is going digital. Digital is the future and entrepreneurs need to be ready to change to meet the new realities. Alberts believes that EQWIP HUBs is a good fit for anyone especially those from broken homes.

“You are the master of your own life. And with the people who can motivate you, and show you the right direction, don’t say no to them. Give it a yes, and life will also give you a yes. That is what EQWIP HUBs has done to me.” –Albert Joseph