Today I am boarding the train from Nairobi to Mombasa to join my colleagues for our annual strategy retreat.
As I step onto this train, my mind travels back many years, to the day I dropped out of school in Togo and was encouraged to take a labor job with the national railway company, Chemin de Fer du Togo.

After a few months, I was admitted to their training center and earned a double certification as a train operator and Train station officer .
On my very first day at my first duty station in Akodéasséwa, something stirred deep inside me. I was only 19, full of energy, full of hope, full of ambition, and I remember thinking: What am I doing here? Is this really my path?

That feeling grew stronger and clearer. After a year of service, I made one of the hardest and most important decisions of my life: I resigned and went back to school, determined to make it, whatever it took. 8 years later, I completed my Master’s degree in International Law and Administrative Science.

I have never considered the time I spent as a train operator and station officer a waste. Those rails taught me discipline, responsibility, humility and the courage to change tracks when your soul tells you that you are meant for something more.
Today, as the train rolls towards Mombasa, I carry that young 19-year-old with me, still full of energy, hope and ambition, just on a different journey: fight for human rights, equity and justice.