Starting an NGO is one of the last things that I ever imagined myself doing. I was always the kind of person who focused on my talents, intelligence and books. I knew I wanted to be the next Kofi Annan but that only meant that I would study a little bit more after university and get a job at the United Nations. I would then climb the ladder all the way to the top. That was all at the beginning of university in 2008. Four years later, I am a completely different person. I have been a student leader three years in a row, which means getting involved in campus politics, and only my critics and supporters can comment extensively on how it has been. Through all of this, one thing that I came to discover of myself is that I care. I watched the local primary school around my home, Bulbul Primary School, which had no windows, no electricity and no water. I had lived in this neighbourhood (Ngong, Kenya) for over ten years and had seen little development to this school. If you know the area, you will understand that it becomes extremely cold in July, with its close proximity to the hills, and therefore having no windows in the classrooms, and school being on in this period, I imagined it was awful. With this in mind, an idea was born in 2009 and incubated in me for a while. I desired to help make a change in this school. There was a way I could help develop this school, and I just needed to find it, and effect it. In 2010, the urgency of the idea became apparent to me, and I decided that I would do something about it. I was going to gather a team with the hope that we would be able to make a change to the infrastructure of this school and many others that we would identify. I gathered a team of four individuals with various talents and abilities so that they would help me achieve this dream and we began to think up a framework that would enable us to achieve the dream I had. One thing that surprised me at this point is that they bought in to the idea. I never imagined that anyone would be interested in what I had dreamt up and was passionate about. The team pushed the idea through, and we developed some brilliant strategies. As we advanced with our cause though, we burnt out. We had imagined we would be able to cater for the development of the school infrastructure changes but we realised that such levels were possible once we had grown into a bigger outfit, so we had to change our focus. 
This is when the true African Solutions for Africa Programme was born! We realised that even if we couldn’t deliver new infrastructure to the students and the schools, there was something we could do! We had already gone through the whole 8-4-4 school system and therefore we knew the ins and outs of studying and the deficiencies that were there. We decided that we could use the power of mentorship and change the lives of the students we interacted with, and teach them about issues that affect them both in small scale in their communities and in large scale as Africans. It has been almost two years since the idea was born and looking back, I can easily say that it is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. I have met amazing people through the programme, with whom we are working now. I have had the chance to visit Brussels, Belgium as a result of ASAP, but most important of all, I have gotten the chance to meet the amazing students we are working with, to listen to their ideas, and to share about their hopes and dreams. One big lesson that I have learnt is that Africa truly has a lot to offer, the issue is how to bring this out in the best way for the students to realise their potential, and that is what I work towards every day I am focussing on the programme! By Gilbert Mitullah Twitter @OMGilbert
ASAP Origins….The Beginning!
