Revolutionary Minds: Meet 22-year-old Employer Of Six - Eric Vondee

An urge to take the burden of his upbringing off ‘mummy’ after ‘daddy’ neglected them. A long held passion to be in the position to help children whose academic ships are sinking beyond salvage, stay afloat. A zeal to be an employer and not an employee. And most importantly, a conviction that beyond age 18, persons who start voting should be able to take care of themselves without relying on their parents. Those are the drivers that pushed 22 year old second year Actuarial Science student of the University of Cape Coast Eric Vondee to start his company, “My Home Teacher” last year whilst still gnashing his teeth as an undergraduate.

“At age 18, I made a resolution not to depend on my parents for school fees or pocket money. I felt that once you can vote at age 18, you should be able to take certain responsibilities. Right from age 18 up to now 22, I try to pay my school fees and pocket money,” Eric explained in an interview with the Revolutionary Minds Project.

“My Home Teacher” is a business organization that connects parents with teachers to get quality, private tuition for their wards at home at fairly moderate fees. This is how it works. Parents of Primary, Junior High and Senior High School students subscribe with the organisation. “My Home Teacher” identifies teachers who live within the same locality as the students to minimize transportation cost and increase contact hours. The two parties agree on a schedule. The well screened and properly trained teachers get to work. Periodically, payments are made into the accounts of “My Home Teacher” and disbursed to the teachers. Effective monitoring and evaluation of the work of the teachers are undertaken all through.

“I also thought that every parent wants the best for their children in terms of academics, so they will go a mile to get a private teacher for them, hence the birth of My Home Teacher. Also solving the rate of unemployment by providing teaching jobs to graduates who would want to earn an income was a major thing I wanted to do in my own capacity,” Eric explained when asked about what motivated him to start “My Home Teacher.”

What began as an idea sowed by a speaker at a business seminar Eric attended years ago; spurred on by extra ordinary encouragement from reading Robert Kiyosaki’s “Teach To Be Rich” book; and watered by a lot of hardwork and determination, has today swelled into an idea that is changing the lives of many children and young people.

Transforming lives
Today, “My Home Teacher” is creating jobs. It’s employed six teachers so far. The organisation has also helped dramatically improve the academic performance of many pupils, including Abigail Newton who recently received the most improved student award on her graduation day in 2015. Another success story has been that of a primary 4 student, Junior, who used to struggle with Mathematics but has seen a turn around since “My Home Teacher” got involved with his academics some months ago. "I was weak in Mathematics to the extent of obtaining 55% in exams but after being taught by My Home Teacher, I saw myself obtaining 93% in Mathematics,” Junior said.

“My Home Teacher” has chalked a number of successes nationally. The company was nominated as the Best Student Startup at the 2016 Ghana Startup Awards. In March 2015, Eric was named as one of Top 30 Young Ghanaian Achievers by New Accra Magazine. He has also been nominated in several categories in the 2015 Ghana Tertiary Awards as Student of The Year, as well as Most Influential Student in Entrepreneurship and Radio Presenting.

Challenges
Combining the running of a business venture with full time pursuance of a degree can be more than tiring. It requires you to be among the first batch of people to rise from bed, and places you among the last to go to sleep. “There is so much stress on me trying to put up the best performance in my academics and also successfully manage my business… but we are not deterred,” he explained.

Eric has chosen the path of entrepreneurship which is travelled less by most young people of his age, determined never to become a member of the Unemployed Graduates Association of Ghana. It’s made him more than just a student and an entrepreneur. He is now a role model to the young people his company teaches, as he trains them in entrepreneurship even at a young age. He’s been featured on major media platforms including Joy FM as a day’s host of the morning show. All these put pressures on him to live a good life above reproach. Pressures that you will only understand when you walk in his shoes.

Follow my lead
Eric prepared himself for this day. Right from Senior High School level, he spent his leisure time teaching children in his neighbourhood free of charge. Something which has really equipped him for the running of this company. He hates to see people fail, and is always eager to lift others up when they seem down. Another critical inspiration for starting “My Home Teacher.” Eric says this has made him a far better person than he ever dreamt he will become.

“I am of the firm conviction that the only way to be successful is to look for a human need to solve for profit… Let us all look out for problems in our society and try to solve them rather than complaining about anything that comes our way,” Eric said when asked for a word of advice to young people.

Brighter Future
Eric has bigger dreams for “My Home Teacher” beyond the precincts of Cape Coast where it has started from. He hopes to someday expand the company to all parts of the country. Something he is confident will happen soon. In the long term, the company hopes to expand to other African countries as well.

Eric is no doubt an achiever in the true sense of the word achiever. He won awards as the Best Geography Student and Most Decent Student whilst at Apam Senior High School where he was also Assistant School Prefect. Today, beyond schooling and running his business, he also works as a radio presenter on the University of Cape Coast’s campus radio station, ATL FM, and doubles as an Actor and a Singer. But Eric says the greater days of his life are yet to come. This is just the beginning. The Revolutionary Minds Project wishes him well every step of the way.

Writers note:
This write up by journalist Joseph Opoku Gakpo with editing by Nana Aba Forson is part of a series of articles by the REVOLUTIONARY MINDS project to put the spotlight on unnoticed individuals engaged in radically, inspiring activities in their communities. The focus of the project is to tell the stories of people, particularly, young persons, engaged in activities they would ordinarily not be doing. Every month, the project publishes the story of one “Revolutionary Mind” on www.josephopokugakpo.wordpress.com, and this website and aggressively shares it on social media to the reach of as many people as possible. The objective of the project is to inspire all young people to do something daring and ground breaking in their communities.

REVOLUTIONARY MINDS…. Do something Daring

By Joseph Opoku Gakpo