The FEARLESS SUMMIT is our annual gathering of church and marketplace leaders like myself who are madly passionate about bringing change in every sector of our society. We literally “smoke, drink, sleep, wake, dream and inhale” positive transformation towards ending poverty and social injustices of all manners in our society. The distinguishing factor which is attracted me to be part of this Fearless Community is that fact we specifically designed the Summit as a solutions-oriented platform and is therefore a game-changer, offering unmatched real opportunities for all our attendees. It’s no surprise that the previous physical events attracted about 1,000 delegates from over 4 continents and this year even with the pandemic we had over 3,700 delegates who registered for the event online at the comfort of their home. This year was extra special being our 11th Edition of the Fearless Summit but more exciting that it was also our very first ever virtual summit, with a very timely theme named “Be The Spark: Sparking Change for a new normal” It was held from Monday 20th July to Sunday; 26th July 2020. Speaking at the opening plenary session, our Visionary Founder -Pastor Muriithi Wanjau started us off on fire and to date i vividly remember his exact words and I quote “the entire world is experiencing its biggest crisis ever since the Second World War, yet in every crisis there lies an opportunity for change. As the church we are mandated to be at the center of societal change and transformation. This can be done by intentionally providing relief support to those who are in crisis. Then moving from crisis management to helping people support themselves in the new normal and then moving from sustainability to long-term God-Centered societal change.” There are very powerful sentiments from our very own Kenyan change-agent and indeed this speaks volumes and will resonate with me for a very long time. I could not agree more with Pastor M (like most of us normally call him) because that’s exactly why God created us in the first place. His words not only reminded me of Genesis 1:28 creation story which says “God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The summit also featured prominent gospel artists such as Mercy Masika, Eunice Njeri, Noel Nderitu, Charles Rigga, Joel Maluki and Laura Karwira among many others; which was a great way of showcasing to the whole world of the amazing extraordinary God-given talent in Arts & Music Sector we have right here in Kenya. The event featured both international and local thought-leaders from all walks of life, who passionately shared from their heart inspirational, practical, well researched content and building nuggets across various sectors of the economy.
One of the session that I thoroughly enjoyed was the Future of Work session, a subject I have been mentoring on and monitoring closely for a few years now around leveraging latest technological innovations. Indeed this was very timely considering how this deadly Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the working environment like we knew it a big deal. Speaking on the Future of Work plenary under the Business & Economics sector, which had Kenya’s well respected innovator himself Mr Sam Gichuru and our wisest Professor Dr Bitange Ndemo who literally ‘brought the house’ down by his powerful closing remarks when he stated “any career which has repetitive work will soon be replaced by robots. To maintain your career, you need to unlearn, re-learn and also learn new skills to remain relevant.” They shared some of amazing things happening in the technology space and how the virtual reality is impacting not only practical education online, medical/health management, online shopping, financial institution’s credit scoring to supply chains management in this 4th industrial revolution. They challenged us to rethink how we are utilizing our basic resources available right in our hands especially our mobile devices. God has given us so many natural talents but we must constantly upgrade ourselves with the dynamic times to stay relevant and acquire new practical skills. We can’t afford to simply feel entitled, do nothing to improve our value (skill sets) and still hope to remain competitive. Entitlement kills competitiveness. Sam Gichuru urged Kenyan citizens to stop always complaining about the government by boldly challenging us by asking us, “What have you personally or at a corporate level done to improve the unemployment situation in the country? We should each take responsibility for our children not having jobs and endeavor to create employment. Teach your kids practical skills in your house.”
To be honest listening to the wisdom from Sam Gichuru who has been there done that was music to my ears. Sam is the founder and CEO of Nailab,is a business incubator focused on providing the right ingredients to turn local business ideas into viable startups located in Nairobi. He is also Co-founder at Kuhustle- a startup company that sources for projects across the globe using skilled African freelancers to deliver the jobs. Their discussions is the one I resonated with my purpose driven life and it reminded me of the burden that God has put in my heart years back hence the reason I have been mentoring Youths all the globe in matters Entrepreneurship and Employability skills. It brought back fresh memories of how when COVID-19 hit Kenya and all were schools closed, many teens and youths were devastated (joblessness, hopelessness, idleness, lack of finances and others displaced). In April 2020 six of us from different sectors (we call ourselves “The Magnificent 6” aka M6 came together and we started virtually mentoring these Youths every week in the evening after work via Zoom on topics they requested that are very relevant and practical. We have so far mentored over 600 Youths and still going strong. Many of them have gotten job opportunities (Gold Avenue Africa) and others have been able to start Micro businesses to feed themselves and others who had shut their businesses have now reopened and are able to make sales online-networked online via our Nduta Angels Foundation, & eMentoring Africa via our Weekly Mentor’s Parlour. Others have joined hands together to start small agribusiness ventures that are generating them group incomes and my heart is full of joy to see what is doing through us to transform lifes-indeed it’s amazing when we heed to God’s calling. So i totally agree with the good old Professor & Sam a 1001 percent because a lot of times we Kenyans are very quick to critique the Government. And while in principle yes I too strongly think that our Government can obviously do much better than it’s currently doing. But at the same time can we be very honest with ourselves and start by asking ourselves individually the hard questions as custodians of God’s kingdom on earth? What have we individually done this far to make a difference on our part? One of my favorite leader is the late John F. Kennedy’s and whenever I sense exhaustion in serving my country (which is full of corrupt-greed ridden leaders which seems to rub me the wrong way) i often listen to his inaugural speech years back where he inspired children and adults to see the importance of civic action and public service. His historic words are the driving force for everything I do in my sphere of influence including the solutions I develop for my Women and Youths that I currently serve in the Kenyan Banking sector at the State Bank of Mauritius (SBM Bank Kenya) which stated, “Ask not what your country can do for you – instead ask what you can do for your country,” .J.K. Kennedy in his speech challenged his fellow Americans to contribute in some way to the public good and many years later I still find this speech very relevant to our current our Kenyan economy. Can you imagine how awesome and prosperous our Kenya would be if we were all doing our bear minimum part to contribute positively towards re-building our beautiful country’s GDP?
Mentors Parlour: CHANGING MINDSETS with Margaret Kimani (This is one of our sessions) https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=46hZg4xLiUw
Speaking about mentorship in the Media, Arts & Creative industry was our very own “Churchill“, a Kenyan comedian who hosts the comedy television show Churchill Show on NTV Kenya on Sundays and Thursdays who has worked in the comedy industry since 1996 and has now become a household name in Kenya. His real name is Daniel ‘Churchill’ Ndambuki who really encouraged artists to create platforms that would bring aboard more local artists to give them the much needed visibility and build their brands especially now because this sector is one of the worst hit by COVID-19 lock downs as most social gatherings in Kenya were suspended as well as major events. “Your platform is not just for you. It is for you to lift others up as you were lifted,” said Churchill. One of the other speakers I thoroughly enjoyed listening to was Pastor Moses Mukisa, Senior Pastor of Worship Harvest, Kampala Uganda urged church leaders to quickly adopt to technology and not shy away from it nor resist change. “Have no excuse for failing to move onto the technology platforms. If you have a mobile phone, you have a stage to offer solutions to a global audience.” In the same summit, our inventor eloquent unstoppable Dr Aghan Oscar shared on how he is improving the environment by turning recycled plastic waste into affordable building materials such as roofing tiles and building blocks. Indeed, there are so many opportunities for us to fearless innovate, be the spark to changing the world like Dr Aghan did.
As a young busy career mom who is now also homeschooling our 6 years old Princess Amani, it was very encouraging and reassuring to me to listen to our seasoned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Gladys Mwiti during the Family and Education sector session who clearly stated, “some families have become stronger with the pandemic, however others have grown weaker. I recommend that each family sets up a weekly family business meeting to discuss how to navigate this pandemic.” I found this very helpful and practical so I have somewhat started having savings conversations with my daughter whenever she asks for her favorite candies and chocolates during our evening walk I ask her if she has any money in her piggybank.
In the digital technology plenary led by Communication Enthusiast; Pastor David Kuria had the panelists drawn from different parts of the world who shared their realities. It led us to discover that the church must pivot to adapt to the new normal without really loosing it’s intended purpose and meaning as we have seen lately most churches migrating to offering online and like the award winning Digital Content Creator Richard Njau noted that “infact churches are now creating more content than Hollywood.” Who would have ever imagined that we would do away with physical church gatherings ever! The session ended with a wise caution that the online quantity of church online content does not always guarantee impactful quality of discipleship. Authenticity and being real is mission critical even as we move to online services. Unlike the world, the church cannot focus solely on chasing after “views and likes” as opposed to discipleship as God intended it to be. We discussed what it’s like being a leader during mega crisis and Pastor Eric Geiger concluded it for us using the Napoleon definition that “the role of a leader is to define reality and give others hope.” He urged us all to honestly define for our followers what the context of our new reality is with honesty including helping them to grief because the truth is there is plenty of losses realities caused by this unprecedented crisis. Leaders are made during crisis so giving people hope includes reminding them that Jesus will rebuild what has been lost during this crisis. We must make sure we help our direct teams and followers to make best use of new opportunities arising out of this crisis such as digitization, streamlining processes, automation of redundant non value adding processes, making best use of their time now to reskill, unlearn and retool themselves to greater heights. Dr Henz also challenged us to go back to our own roots, communities, neighborhoods and begin the transformational initiatives that will cause an army of ordinary men and women become fearless change agents.
Speaking of being Fearless and how I have been so blessed to be the Spark, today as i write is one of the highly celebrated days globally as it marks The International Youth Day and considering that the majority of the world population is dominated by Youths ranging from ages o to 35 years. This year’s theme was “Youth engagement for Global Action”- by involving youths at the local, national and global level. But even as we celebrate this very important day I can’t help but the empathize with our Youths from the 2 sides of the coin…on one side of this coin there are Youths who are have become the Game Changers in their spheres some even at a very early age. These are youths who have created real solutions that are solving world problems and are living to see their goals come to fruition right before their wildest dreams and some at a very early age. Such Youths have even pushed their envelopes so far that they have become employers at a very early age. One such example is our very own Nancy Amunga who is the Founder of Dana Logistics who at a very early age created a door-to- door delivery services business that is now creating employment – feeding families even during this global crisis. She has received several, both local and international awards. She was selected as the Commonwealth Young Entrepreneur of the year during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London, UK and he was an honoree of the African Achievers Awards for social impact category at the House of Commons in London, UK amongst many other local awards which includes Top 25 Under 25 Entrepreneurs in Kenya (2015). Another example is our 19 year-old Yuri Corrette who I am so privileged to have mentored along the way who started a Water project that is supplying clean water in Kenya’s informal sectors while he was still in Lenana high school. Another amazing example is young Mboya who we is supporting to drive the “SDGs-Mtaani” agenda in the slums giving a new lease of hope and income generating streams to the idle youths in Mukuru Kwa Jenga slums while recruiting other youths to impact their informal settings. And it’s not like these game makers have got their lifes 100% perfect or fully figured out but it’s just that they choose to not focus on their sole gain alone but they choose to the spark we are talking about in the summit –by putting the needs of others first which is selfless. Sadly on the other side of this coin there are also youths who have lost jobs, others who have lost hope, others due to bad peer pressure have negatively impacted and lament having “used” by political leaders who in turn do not advocate for an enabling environment for youths to thrive, other youths who were locked out of schools who were to graduate this year are feeling wasted, desperate, lonely and hopeless wondering what this new world can possibly ever offer after such a crazy crisis.
With tall these challenges in mind I couldn’t help but reminisce over how lucky I am to be part of Fearless Community in Mavuno Church, Hill City Campus. Like I mentioned at the beginning we at Fearless are like minded ordinary people who are very passionate about bringing change to every sector of the economy because “iron indeed sharpens iron.” At Fearless Institute and we totally believe that we are called to be the change agents in our own areas of influence in our everyday lifes. And for sure a candle does not diminish its bright light by lighting another candle and if you have read this far i believe you have been inspired enough to immediately start being the Spark that God the almighty made you to be. Choose your path of your life that lights you the most, take chances, live life passionately and be the fearless influencer of society because like Normal Cousins rightly put it “the tragedy of life is not death but what we let die inside of us while we still live.” It is no doubt 2020 will sit in our memories for some years to come as the year that forced us to adjust, unlearn and relearn a new way of living in this new world of masking, constantly sanitizing and social distancing. For some it has been incredibly difficult, some have figured out how to thrive in this new trying season, some have been lucky and some unlucky. Let’s not be afraid to fail in being the spark or even being afraid of not trying in the first place. And instead of competing with say China why not dare ourselves to create local innovations ourselves?
Yes indeed we can!
#BeTheSpark #FearlessSummit2020 #FearlessInfluencersOfSociety
#ChangeMakers #ServantLeaders
#ChangeMakers #ServantLeaders
Fearless Leadership 