Born to Silverno Orinyo from Zombo, Matthias Ocaya, 25, is one of the innovators in the vocational field, thanks to his persistence. An old student of Otoroga Boys Primary School in Zombo, Ocaya started dreaming about joining vocational education then, but his father would not hear any of it.

“After Primary Seven, I told my father that I wanted to enroll in a vocational institute although he wanted me to continue to secondary school. So, I joined St Aloysius Secondary School in Zombo District and while there, my knowledge on innovation developed,” Ocaya recalls.

He got career guidance and learned that he could actually go enroll in a vocational school after O-Level. 

“Whenever we got holidays, I would go to different people in my village for apprenticeship in plumbing work, building and wiring. I did that from Senior One holidays to Senior Four. In Senior Four vacation, I built myself a house and since I wanted to make a door for it, I went to a certain carpenter in my village to ask him for his equipment,” he says. But the carpenter instead asked him to come and help him at his workshop since he had no one to work with. Ocaya started work the following day.

“I made my door but also learnt more skills, so, next, I made myself a bed but before I could take it home, a buyer asked for it. I told him I could make him one and he paid me Shs200,000. This was the first money I earned and through him, I got many more customers,” he narrates.

Although Ocaya did carpentry work, being a mechanic was his ultimate dream. After Senior Four vacation, he still expressed interest in vocational education but his father still did not want him to go. 

“I joined A-Level at Paidha Senior Secondary School but class things had gotten a bit slow for me. I looked for a garage in the area where I would work at the weekend and during the holiday. It was then that I thought about making a prototype of a car from timber,” he says.

Realising his dream

With six points after A-Level, he joined vocational school. 

Ocaya joined Lugogo Vocational Institute in Kampala in 2016. “Two weeks into the course, I went to my lecturer and told him I wanted to build a car. He asked me how I was going to do it and told me to write a proposal with all the details and to also draw what I wanted to make. He also asked me whether I would be able to pull it off,” Ocaya explains.