NAIROBI, October 31 – Meet March Glaotisia and her twin sister Fridah Leotisia, the proprietors of Skywest Productions. Theirs is one of the estimated 50,000 enterprises that have sprung out of the Youth Fund. Established two years ago it is estimated that over 200,000 youths have benefited from direct or indirect jobs from the Fund.
The twins established their business in 2006 from their own savings, and the launch of the fund a year later could not have come at a better time. Their business specializes in events coverage and management, documentaries and TV programs production. They borrowed Sh500, 000 and bought one professional camera. “We used to hire cameras and at times it inconvenienced us, so basically that is what we needed most,” notes March (just call me March, she said during the interview).
The rare combination of a creative writer and a marketer have made strides for the twins, who are now the bread winners of their seven-member family after losing their father five years ago.
And two years into Skywest Productions, they launched another business, Glao and Leo Photoshop, to diversify their earnings. The twins have employed six people in their businesses.
“I used to work for a media company but my ideas were not being used the way I would prefer. So I wanted my ideas to go further,” notes March, who is clearly the more talkative of the two.
Just like any business, teething problems were particularly challenging but their marketing background came in handy. “We embarked on aggressive marketing and now we have big clients like Kenya Breweries, British American Tobacco, Kenya Bureau of Standards and so many others,” says March. Their clientele also includes the Youth Affairs Ministry and the East African Community Ministry, through which they have also clinched clients in Tanzania and Uganda.
The Youth Fund, they say, has boosted their earnings by over 50 percent.
“I would tell the youth to be go-getters. It is never going to be easy but it doesn’t mean one should not try,” March advises. Her sister chips in, “The sky should be the limit. Don’t just sit there and be employed, come up with your own ideas and do something.”
And true to these beliefs the young entrepreneurs hope to launch, ‘Skywest TV’ soon. This they say will be different from the rest. “We have the ideas and we will launch sometime.”
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