The journey from Nairobi to Nakuru on 13th October 2018 the commencement was longer than usual. The three and a half hours for the journey seemed like more than six hours. The society I was seeing outside the van I was traveling in seemed to have more needs that needed to be served, needs that I was not sure whether I was capable of helping it meet. That was then and the sleepless nights have only dragged on and they seem never ending. Building a house starts with laying one brick after, of course, digging the trenches and conducting proper measurements and planning among other things. The YALI RLC training had done the trenches and measurements, it was now time for me to put a plan into action and lay the bricks.

Design Thinking, a revolutionary way of life that has transformed the lives of many even though they may never know, a creative approach to problem solving; simple yet straight forward and still mysterious at the same time. Together with Joseck Olala, YALI Cohort 25 Alumni and my mentor, I managed to train 30 individuals drawn from various professions and livelihoods on Design Thinking. These people were students, young entrepreneurs, church leaders, librarians, building caretakers and parents. Taking these individuals through the empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping and testing was not an easy task but most fulfilling. The curiosity, the fatigue, the frustrations, the heated discussions, the amazing prototypes, the wild ideas and the anticipation of new knowledge, all these things made the 3-days program quite amazing. The participants are now thinking in a designed way to solve problems in the lives of others and their own. They are transforming their families, business, and jobs to better things. A lady known as Rukia Suleiman, a mother of 5 children and a business woman selling liquid soap and charcoal cited that she would now do business based on the customers needs, not her perceived needs for the customer. She is one among many who saw the light.

In teaching you learn twice, in doing you learn thrice and that is how I, with the support of Alumni Chapter of Nakuru, am serving my community. I saw design thinking in a new way as I do everytime I read and research more about it. This was the first program I was involved with after the transformation journey. The sleepless nights and long days are never ending, so is the journey of transformation. This was just the beginning.