In 2014, I was a student at ZCAS studying for my CIMA qualification. We were in a lecture on how to prepare core financial statements when our lecturer (May His Soul Rest in Internal Peace 🕊) suddenly paused and looked around the room. “How many of you in here own or owns shares ?” he asked. The whole lecture theatre went quiet. Not a single hand went up. He smiled and continued teaching, but then he said something that stuck with me: “You’re at ZCAS. Intermarket Bank is just a walk away from here at Central Park. You can buy shares worth K500 instead of drinking alcohol all the time !” After the lecture, I decided to take him seriously. I walked straight to Intermarket at Central Park, found a financial advisor, and told him honestly: “This is my first time. I’m a student. I just came from class learning about shares and I want to buy a well-performing one. ”He advised me to buy CECZ shares Copperbelt Energy Corporation. At the time, one share was going for around K0.66. I bought shares worth K800 from my pocket money for the month … and then I forgot about it. Life moved on. I finished my studies, my career interests shifted from pure accounting into financial services, and that single share sat somewhere in the back of my mind. Years later, I went back to check on it. What I discovered blew me away. Everyone who had bought shares around that time (including me) had been given free additional shares through corporate actions. Specifically, when CEC restructured and created CEC Africa (CECA), shareholders received shares in the new entity equivalent to what they held in CEC. On top of that, the original CEC share price had grown massively over the years from under K1 to well over K17 in recent times. That one small decision buying a single share at K0.66 because my lecturer challenged us had multiplied in both quantity and value. What started as a casual act after class became real wealth creation through capital appreciation and corporate distributions. All in all, that forgotten share taught me something powerful: Capital markets are not just for rich people or big institutions. They are for ordinary students, young professionals, and anyone willing to take that first small step.Instead of spending that K500 (or even less) on drinks and short-term fun, I had unknowingly put it to work in a real Zambian company that powers our economy. Time, patience, and smart corporate actions did the rest. Today, I’m more convinced than ever that every Zambian should participate in our capital markets even if it’s just the minimum ! – at Zimbabwe