Justine Murungi is a graduate of Leisure and Hospitality Management from Makerere University Business School. She stands out because she got a part-time job immediately after Senior Six results were released by Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) in 2017. During her year, she emerged the best Senior Six student in the whole of Mubende district in Central Uganda. This prompted Murungi’s former school to offer her a part-time job. She was tasked to teach A-level students. She taught History and Christian Religious Education over the weekends. As some of her course mates went out to have fun over the weekends, Murungi was busy teaching. She could travel on Friday and return to Kampala on Sunday night or Monday morning to attend lectures. After graduation, she continued teaching since it was the only thing that would occupy her.

During internship at Kampala Serena Hotel, Murungi realised the need to venture into tourism, since she was passionate about the sector. As she was contemplating her next step, a friend sent her a link with information about the Work Readiness Programme. She was interested so applied.

“It had a lot of things to fill, but I made sure that I filled everything, and I went through,” she says.

Murungi was attached to Adventure in the Wild Limited, a Tour and Travel company located in Najjanankumbi, along Entebbe Road to acquire hands on skills. She started writing content that could be shared with potential tourists on the company’s website. The content gives a detailed report of different tourist attractions in Uganda and different types of animals found in the various national parks. According to her, the training helped her to have a feel for the practical part of her profession.

“I had never been to any tour company but when I came here, our director gave me an opportunity to learn. I can write good content about various tourist attractions,” she says. “Basically, when you are still at university, we focus so much on grades, but they don’t help in writing content. Most of the students doing tourism and hospitality stop and learn about tourist attractions but they don’t get a chance to visit them.

 “You study about Bwindi, but you don’t know the animals found there,” she adds.