Winning in America: Helping Kenyans secure jobs abroad

“The reason it was difficult at first is because I went there alone. I was married and I left my husband behind. I was also pregnant. I also had other social issues like the culture shock, being in a new country, new job, a first-time mother and the worst was I didn’t know how to drive,” said Ms Rangi.

Ms Rangi added that transitioning from Kenya “where things are done for you” to the US “where you have to do them all alone” was not a walk in the park.

“It had nothing to do with my career. In fact, it helped me a lot because I always had money to give to carpool with other people and also pay for child care for my baby,” she recalled.

Ms Rangi started the path to where she is by enrolling at the School of Nursing at the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton.

SECURED JOB

After that, she interned for a year at Kenyatta National Hospital before sitting the Nursing Council Examinations. Having passed, she was registered as a community health nurse, after which she secured a job at Aga Khan.

In the US, she furthered her studies. She obtained a Master’s in family nurse practice, from the University of California, Los Angeles. She also completed her postgraduate studies from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where she specialised in psychiatry and mental health.

As she worked in the US, she found a passion in blogging and vlogging (making and sharing videos).

Ms Rangi, who travelled to Kenya to launch her book, said she has seen people migrate to America and noticed the struggles they go through. Her observation is that they appeared to lack information.

“Even just talking to people here, I can see that they want to go to America and are struggling. I said, ‘Ok, there is some truth there and we need to fix this.”

EXPERIENCES

She first started to make short clips about life in US and advising would-be immigrants on what not to do if you want to go there, and shared them on Facebook. To her surprise, people started asking questions which she then replied. “The responses made me go back and talk to them and that is how it all started.”

Her new book, which she says is a collection of what people have been asking, took her three years to finish and is based on her personal experiences as an immigrant to help people with knowledge of relocating abroad.

“When I started with the clips on social media, it was easy because I would get like 20 questions and I would respond. Then all of a sudden, the messages started flooding in my direct messages and they became overwhelming. I decided that I would be responding through my videos,” said Ms Rangi.

She calls her solution a different pathway to success “especially for those wishing to change their lives for the better”.

“Although nothing is promised, those who put in practice what I deliver through my regular blogs and books are more likely to succeed. We all need to search in the right places. I always say in my blogs that we need to know what the world knows because information is power,” she writes in her book.

OPPORTUNITIES

She says that because she made use of the opportunities that presented themselves to her, she feels the responsibility “to share the same with my community”.

Asked to name what people ask her most, Ms Rangi said a majority of her followers want to know how to get a Green Card, followed by people who want to apply for a visa and be successful while others want to know why they were denied visas. Those already in the US, she said, often want to know how they will transition once they get back to Kenya.