University of Eldoret Bsc graduate, Mbalanga Nicholas (right) holding one of his portrait belonging to a client, left.
There is a high unemployment rate in Kenya. This has seen a big number is qualified school leavers majority of whom are university graduates who, in a desperate effort to find a source of livelihood have been pushed into manual labour.
One such notable job seeker is none other than Mbalanga Nicholas, a 30 year old Bachelor of Science degree holder who, owing to lack of a job and after tarmacking for many years searching for one without success resolved to engage in portrait designing providing it would eventually enable him to get the cash to make ends meet.
“With the high unemployment rate currently being experienced in Kenya, it would be pointless for one to waste his/her valuable time searching for a white collar jobs which are nowhere to be found,” said Mbalanga during a one on one with The Nyanza Review yesterday.
Mbalanga, a bonafide resident of Budalangi constituency in Busia county, currently residing at an estate in Kisumu West, Kisumu County, has been carrying out his artwork business for close to three years.
He at the same time said he isn’t operating from one place adding that in most occasions he is being invited by some of his clients who wants their portraits done.
The renowned portrait designer said that when he attained the age of going to school, his parents enrolled him at Bubamba primary school in the year 2000 eventually sitting for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exams in the year 2009, scoring 278 marks that saw him join John Osogo Boys High School in Bunyala West, Port Victoria town between the year 2010 and 2013 passing with a grade B plain.
He then went to the University of Eldoret in 2014 where he underwent a 4 year degree course in Natural Resource Management graduating in 2018 with a 2nd Class Upper Division.
Mbalanga expressed dismay saying that though he had the confidence of getting a lucrative job after graduating, he is yet to get any job six years down the line.
“I had been made to believe that joining the university, I would scoop a well paying job, but I was wrong considering that six years down the line, I am to get any job,’ he said.
He at the same time said that though he hasn’t succeeded in securing a job, he has nothing to regret about because his artwork business has been sustaining him considering that he has scores of clients who pay him well for his products.
“I have a number of clients who flock to me to make their portraits and they are paying me good money. A portrait is going for sh1500 and I produce twenty of them per month thus earning me sh30,000 per month which is enough to sustain me,” he said.
He, however appealed to fellow job seekers not to be selective saying job opportunities are scarce and are hard to come by.
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