Media personality Caroline Marcah will live to tell how she grinded as she started out her media career, working at some point for a whole year for a television station with no pay.
Marcah, real names Caroline Mirembe says she joined the Nsambya-based Life TV in her Senior 6 vacation, after running from home.
She’d fallen out with her father, who threatened not to pay for her university tuition.
Shortly after renting a Shs 150,000 room around Ntinda, she landed the TV job as a side gig. She was also doing poetry and plays at the National Theatre.
But for the whole year at the TV station, Marcah says, she never got paid a salary.
Instead, she says, she and her colleagues received prayers from the TV owner, one Pastor Tom Sembera at every end of the month.
“The pastor would pray for you at the end of the month to get blessings. He’d then thank you for doing God’s work,” Marcah told Ruth Kalibbala in an interview.
Yet surprisingly, she says, the show she was doing on the station called “Outer Plug” was not even gospel.
This reporter’s request for comments from the station on Marcah’s claims were yet to be responded to.
On why she managed to stay long, Marcah said she had strong faith that things would get better.
“I grew up in a Catholic family where I believed that somewhere somehow things were going to work out. So I kept believing,” she recounted.
Luckily, she says, the station being near the base of the Goodlyfe crew, she ended up meeting legend Radio and Weasel who were impressed by her talent, mentored her and effectively kick-started her career.
