Francis Mwamba, is a Zambian Entrepreneur, Speaker, award winning humanitarian leader and founder of a charity organization called My Dream Projects.
My Dream Projects has three projects: A Reading Project, A Scholars Fund, and We Care Campaign. The Projects have grown since 2015 to sponsoring over 80 vulnerable kids at primary level, has a mini-library with over 500 books mentoring over 150 boys and girls in different life aspects, and has made different donations to health centers, home for the aged, not forgetting the prison.
Francis Mwamba is also the CEO/Founder of multiple private businesses and investment projects, among them My Dream Wear Zambia and Easy Finance.
He holds a degree in Mining Engineering from The Copperbelt University, and has a leadership award recognition from Champions of Humanity Zambia for the works under My Dream Projects.
What is your drive?
I find inspiration in a lot of things, especially in my past, my upbringing, the environment I’ve been raised in and the challenges I see a regular children facing for them to attain even a little bit of comfort in this world. So I’m driven whenever I see someone struggling be it financially or not having basic needs. That drives me to want to do something about it. So I’m mostly driven by what I see and I’m always looking for ways to lessen the burden or remove the pressure that society places on the less priveledged. Actually, that’s my drive in my charity organization and my businesses. My idea of pushing business projects is so that I can have financial stability to be able to fund my charity outreach programs. I’m inspired by the thought that someone can have a better tomorrow or a better life because they’ve encountered in some way, whether it be through my work or through basic interaction.
What three things did you struggle with the most when you started and how did you overcome them?
Indecision
A big struggle was not being fully decisive of what I wanted to do with my life. For example, I was in University, my family was expecting me to become a doctor on the other end, the school pressure that I was not even fully managing. On the other end I also wanted to find what I love so I’m now stuck between fulfilling my family’s desires or maybe getting to know what I can do with my life.
And the moment I discovered and realized I’m only good for my family if I’m at my best and my best is who I am and being true to what I think I can do with my life and having made the decision that I’d follow my gut, regardless of where it leads me is where I began to even expand and do more with my life and time.
-Francis Mwamba
So indecision really drained me.
If you want to achieve your dreams, if you want to pursue a more unique journey than most people settle for. You have to be accountable for the financial costs or the financial muscle or financial dedication fulfilling your dreams will come with.
Financial Discipline
I found myself in a place where I still wanted to have a normal, regular casual youth life, but at the same time I knew that this won’t help me reach where I want to be, so I had to sacrifice and learn the discipline of delayed gratification where I can sacrifice today so I can give my dreams a chance tomorrow if I stayed consistent. And after having made that decision, I began to make breakthroughs even in my personal financial journey.
People’s View and Judgement of Me
The third thing that I had to deal with apart from indecision which is relating to purpose, I also needed to fight peoples views and opinions and how that mattered to me. Often times we live in the perceptions of people . Before you do something, say something, post something; you want to ask yourself what a particular person or the general public will think about you. So we end up not being true to who we are so that we can please others.
I discovered I’m at my best when I please myself and pursue that which may not make sense to the general public right now, but makes sense to me. It really gave me the freedom to do a lot stuff, to experiment and go against the idea of looking for a job which is what my family would have wanted me to do right now. So all those decisions are things I’ve taken responsibility of and I have a feeling that they will one day make sense to everyone else. I stopped living in the perception of others and I started wanting to create my own life. Overcoming people’s judgement Is one key thing I’ve had to overcome.
Getting started with little to no capital, getting funded..
Yes, I have actually shared a lot about this in my book; Making Your First K100,000 which I recommend everyone to read. It not only talks about the money but it also talks about about how someone can start from scratch with zero and be able to build something that’s sustainable with initiative and creativity.
So we have been raised in a society where we have been taught that capital is the reason someone doesn’t go into business because we have been taught to say capital is money. But capital is more than money or funds. Capital is your creativity, your innovation, your ideas and just how best you utilize every opportunity that comes your way.
All that is capital. The businesses I started didn’t require money but would generate money for me. So how do you use your creativity? How do you use what you know to create a starting point for you to scale up and make money to invest in other projects? Having that initiative and desire opened doors to things that I could do that didn’t even require money or a financial muscle to start. I’ve never received funding from my mum or my uncles or from any other person. I’ve built from what I know and scaled it up and kept with the financial resolves I’d made earlier to be consistent if the journey is going to be worthwhile later on. So you don’t always need money, but you need to start in order for you to get money.
My desire is to give life to people’s dreams so my desire to pursue wealth and riches is so that I can be in the place to help as many people as people. My goal is help a million plus in my area of gifting which is leadership and financial literacy. If I can move people from poverty to a place where they have the financial capacity to do something of their own. Quite basically to teach people to own their own fishpond as opposed to just giving them fish. This is a goal I’m committed to and it drives me to push my business ventures so that I’m in the position to fund such ideas.
About my book; Making your first K100,000
Okay so my book, Making Your First K100,000, has (also to my surprise and I thank God for it) made a lot of noise which I thought would take years before it could make such noise. And my intention and desire for this project is basically to bridge the gap between what we’ve been taught about finances with the view of the developed countries’ perspective and worldly views. I think there’s a huge gap on what God says about finances, and what the Zambian kid knows about finances also.
So this book basically highlights the typical Zambian way of going about it or the approach that is very close to home. The average Zambian will easily relate with that journey.
Making Your First K100,000 is not a to-do manual. It’s a journey that takes you from having literally nothing to a place where you gain your confidence and grounds. And you learn to pursue finances with the right mindset, intentions and approach.
My intention of writing the book wasn’t even really about the number of sales or becoming a bestseller. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a plus. I don’t undermine the achievements. But the goal was to reach as many youths as possible with this information. That’s why I’m trying my best to ensure that more people have access to this book.
Impressive article