I lost my dad at 14, retired my mum at 28

I lost my dad at 14. Today, at 28, I've financially retired my mum.

At the start of this year, I announced my first major investment in Africa - MUK PLAZA, a 4-storey commercial building in the heart of Jinja City, Uganda.

What started in January as unused land and an empty shell is now operational, generating revenue and creating employment in my home city.

The ground floor alone generates more income than the UK average salary. The next floor is already under construction, fully funded by ground floor revenue.

I had:

• No real-estate experience

• No construction background

• A full-time role keeping me in London

But after losing my dad, I had a mission to build generational stability for my family. So this year, I learned everything on the job and remotely managed a team to get the project delivered.

Needless to say, we delivered.

This is a deeply personal victory. Being raised by a widowed single mum, and then helping her achieve financial security after all her sacrifice feels like a generational breakthrough. I thank God 🙏🏾

I’m also proud to work at BlackRock, a firm focused on helping people achieve financial well-being. So being able to actually do that for my mum has been one of the biggest wins of my life.

This year I experienced a challenge many in the African diaspora face:

Balancing a career abroad while building back home is difficult. People get cheated and lose everything or just give up (I nearly did).

Throughout this year, many Africans in the diaspora reached out to me wanting to do the same for themselves or their parents, but couldn’t travel frequently or didn’t know how to manage projects remotely.

That's why I'm now exploring ways to help others in the diaspora do the same through Tech Safari's Building Back Home fellowship.

If you're in the diaspora and want to build back home or you're curious about the process I used, feel free to reach out and ask!

#InvestInAfrica #BuildingBackHome