My dream is to be a Captain

As a young boy, Mwaura Vincent Njoroge used to gaze at aircraft flying above his village, in Kirima, Nyandarua County as he was herding. Being the last born in a family of 5 siblings, Mwaura was raised by his grandmother as his dad passed away when he was only 2 years old and his mum was unwell. He is very grateful to his grandmother for being his support system financially, physically, emotionally and mentally. Mwaura started schooling at Huhirio Primary School and later completed his primary school education at Nakuru East Primary, where he scored 215 marks. Despite this setback and financial challenges, Mwaura got a chance to join Kiamaina High School in Nakuru where he worked extremely hard and scored an A- in his KCSE examinations. This exemplary performance secured him a position at Moi University, Eldoret to study his dream course, Civil Aviation Management. Upon completion of university in 2018, it heavily dawned on Mwaura that life was not a walk in the park. He struggled to secure a job. He started working in a quarry before venturing into construction work to make ends meet. He later switched jobs and started selling scrap metals. It is at this business that he met with a hardware owner who changed his life for good. The gentleman saw his education qualifications and offered him a job in his hardware as the fleet operations supervisor in charge of organizing customer deliveries and fuel management. His hard work saw him transition to an LPG company as a Quality and Safety Officer where he worked for 2 years. His aspiration to be an aviator was still deep within him. He never gave up applying for a job in the aviation industry and from the many job applications; he finally got a call from an aviation company where he secured a job as a Safety Officer. One day as he was performing his daily tasks, he saw a Flight Operations Coordinator job vacancy at 748 Air Services and through his interactions with pilots he got interested and applied. Mwaura is now a Flight Operations Coordinator at 748 Air Services. He describes the aviation industry as dynamic and one that requires someone to be passionate and adventurous. He says he loves 748 Air Services employees' hard-working spirit, teamwork and just culture. Working in the aviation industry makes him happy, as it brings him a step closer to achieving his dream of becoming a pilot. Mwaura is blessed with a wife and a lovely daughter of 4 years. He says her daughter loves planes and dreams to pursue a career in aviation when she grows up. As an adamant believer of giving back to the society, Mwaura is the co-founder of an NGO that was started while in high school in 2015 in Nakuru that deals with advocacy against drug and substance abuse. One of his highlights is facilitating a few people to join rehabilitation where two of them are now successful business owners. He is pursuing other avenues of giving back to the society. Together with his wife as a co-founder and a few friends they are in the process of starting another NGO, Chapo Sato where after approval they plan to be cooking and distributing chapati to street families in Nairobi. They soon plan to organize on how the public can donate clothes on weekdays for distribution on Saturdays. Additionally, his brother who is a barber will be shaving them for free. His advice to the youth, “Be positive, have passion, be dedicated and disciplined in order to succeed in life. Sometimes later becomes never. Do it now!!”