Three youths from Gulu, Philip Odhiambo, Santos Ocaya and Irene Lanyero had no lucrative business before attending an internship programme with CEED Uganda. Today, the trio runs a waste management project called ECO Door, where they recycle fabric waste. Although this has become their day-to-day job, they also believe the project is helping the community in conserving the environment.
For instance, Odhiambo says, their business is saving the Gulu environment and will soon start creating jobs for more youth in their community.
According to population estimates, Gulu District has more than 146,858 residents most of them youth and unemployed. Towards the beginning of the year, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released a report indicating that at least 1.2 million youth in Uganda between the age of 15 and 29 are idle and do not do anything for a living.
The report published in November 2018 shows that the increasing youth unemployment in Uganda which now stands at 6.5 per cent, is mostly attributed to the mismatch between skills obtained in Uganda’s education system vis-à-vis what the job market demands.
Nelson Onen Mandela, the brain behind Belcom Welding Plan, is another beneficiary from the CEED internship programme in Gulu. Onen says although he had some skills, the series of trainings by CEED interns nurtured his passion and money saving skills.
The rewards
This year, three groups of youth clubs in Gulu where awarded Shs3m, Shs2m and Shs1m respectively after pitching successful business ideas that change communities by saving the environment and creating jobs.
The ideas were part of a number of programmes organised by internship students under Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (YEP) and mostly students from Gulu University came to the forefront in the pitching business competition.
Ideas were birthed following an intense training by internship students from CEED-Uganda including mushroom farming, fruits salads making and metal welding and fabrication which won the Shs3 million prize.
Bernard Loum from CEED Uganda says that interns identify 10 youth groups (50 young entrepreneurs) every year who go through a rigorous training programme and case competition to access start-up capital.
“The youth are then supported through workshops, mentorships, and technical backstopping during the course of their ventures,” Loum adds.
Hawa Keita, 25, the French-Canadian executive director of CEED Concordia Uganda, says internship students from Concordia University under their umbrella body called Concordia in Canada together with Ugandan students chose to contribute to sustainable community projects in northern Uganda for a three-month internship during the summer semester.
“Our work is based on the positive attitude of young people. We see youth as change agents in their communities,” she adds.
The initiative that was started by two Concordia undergraduate students Awel Uwihanganye and Peter Schiefke seeks to rally the youth to foster community engagement through skills development and information sharing.
Since 2006, the organisation had more than 350 Canadian and Ugandan students. Hawa also revealed that with the help of interns, the youth in Gulu have managed to plant more than 100,000 trees in an annual arrangement dubbed Gulu Go Green. Here the youth hold a marathon to respond to the indiscriminate cutting of trees and to raise tree seedlings to be planted by young people in their schools and other parts of the community.
Saving the environment
She adds that this year, more than 700 runners participated and CEED was been able to acquire 10,000 tree seedlings to plant. And so far the interns alongside students have planted approximately 5,000 Trees.
“The Africa of tomorrow depends on our capability to make it a better place than it is now. And it all starts with young leaders,” she says.
Hawa also says that with communication being the key in developing communities, under a programme called Youth Advocacy and Communications which intends to respond to Social Development Goal5 on Gender Equality, the project offers an opportunity for young people to share their experiences.
“They talk about the issues that affect them while inspiring and motivating other youth in the community. We host a monthly youth radio talkshow called, ‘The CEED Young Achievers talkshow’,” she reveals.
What they say
“We have learnt that the future belongs to the youth, we have been taught how to handle finances and we have acquired entrepreneur skills.”
Nancy Akello Okeny, student
“People are passionate about what they are doing. These are not only businesses, they are businesses that have a positive impact on their community”
Uganda at the moment houses more than 38 million people with the youth constituting more than 80 per cent of the population. There is a saying that the vision of a country lies in the hands of the youth and this is true for Uganda too. The youth have tremendous ambitions. Our country requires the youth to acquire the necessary skills to do the job that can help build the economy.
This demands that the youth should know how to read, write, think. understand, analyse and discuss the country’s challenges. As the spring of life, the age of discovery and dreams of a state, the importance of the youth cannot be over emphasised. The youth have drive to transform Uganda into a better place to live in and the capability to lead their country in the right direction and to fight for the common good, equality, unemployment, exploitation, and poverty, among others.
However, in order for all this to happen, the government should provide the youth with good education. Otherwise, today, the youth especially the males, are preoccupied with foreign football teams such as Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid, etc, while the females are engrossed in watching soaps and movies. Our youth engage in betting activities so as to acquire quick money. The fact is, all developed countries and developing ones are where they are due to the efforts of their youth. As such, it is wrong for the youth in Uganda to get lost in the fantasy of becoming rich in one day.
This is happening due to the youth ignorance and lack of initiatives to lead them in the right direction. For instance, the youth in Uganda play peripheral roles in politics in spite of the fact that they are a social force to reckon with. Uganda faces a lot of challenges which and are better positioned to solve some of them. For instance, the youth can play a crucial role in containing the murders, kidnaps, arrests, suspicions, corruption, poverty, etc, that are putting the country on its tenterhooks.
For all the nightmares in Uganda to brought to an end, the youth should be brought on board in the pursuit for national security and development. The government should know that the role of youth in nation building is crucial. The youth are problem solvers, have a positive influence on other young people and nation, and are extremely ambitious. However, they will not be able to achieve much without the help from the government. The youth can make Uganda rise and shine again.
The selection of Uganda to host the Ninth Commonwealth Youth Ministers’ Meeting this year was not only timely, but also an awakening call to all stakeholders to change their approach to the challenges of youth unemployment.
Currently, Uganda’s youth population stands at about 78 per cent. These are below 30 years of age; the most productive age group. Unfortunately, this is the same group that is most affected by the social and economic challenges in the country. During the Commonwealth Youth Ministers’ Meeting in Kampala, ministers said the commitment of young people to be agents of social and economic progress continues to be undermined by a wide range of challenges they face.
The ministers mentioned challenges such as limited funding for youth-focused and youth-led initiatives and issues such as violent conflicts, natural disasters, poverty, lack of decent work opportunities, climate and demographic changes, weak youth participation structures, limited access to health and education services.
The above mentioned situation is worsened by the youth unemployment, which is at 22.3 per cent yet sadly, these numbers keep growing. Every year in Uganda, a total of 400,000 youth graduates enter the job market. Unfortunately, there is a maximum of 90,000 available jobs. This leaves the remaining 310,000 youth with no jobs and if they are not job creators (do not have vocational skills), they will continue seeking for jobs that have either been taken or are still occupied by people who should be retired.
While government has come up with a number of ways to resolve the problem of youth unemployment through programmes such as wealth creation and commitment to service delivery among others, these have been frustrated due to vices such as corruption, nepotism and bureaucracy.
Fortunately, Uganda still has time to redeem the situation and our redemption lies in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). This is the education that equips the youth with practical skills. For this kind of education to meet its purpose, it should be incorporated into the conventional education system so that every student who graduates, but fails to get into formal employment, can choose to start up own business.
Share An Opportunity Uganda (SAO) has a similar programme for the out-of-school youth. Through this programme, SAOU has realised merits for vocational education that include higher wages, improved productivity, livelihood and income growth, among the youth. It also improves the youth’s commitment to work and this in the long-run, reduces crime since young people will not have time to get involved in criminal activities.
Additionally, for the time SAO has been involved the youth in this kind of education, we have realised that Uganda has a treasure of ambitious young entrepreneurs who just need to be helped with skills in enterprise selection and job creation.
This is why TVET is important because it imparts the much needed skills in the youth. It will also meet society’s demand for competent plumbers, mechanics, hairdressers, tailors, carpenters, and electricians, among others. It equally helps the country to reverse the trend of unemployment. But for this to happen, government should increase domestic funding for TVET. Parents shjould also play a role by encouraging their children to take on vocational courses besides their professional studies given that vocational skills carry a lot of weight if included on the curriculum Vitae.
Given the high level of youth unemployment, Uganda is seated on a time bomb. If a large number of youths find themselves redundant, they become an economic burden, not only to their families, but also to the country. As the adage goes, ‘An idle mind is the devil’s workshop’. Therefore, redundancy is likely to lead to disruption of the peace. As a country, we need to appreciate the fact that young people are important in helping Uganda achieve the dream of becoming a middle income country by 2020. It will also help the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
It is for this reason that we should develop policies and programmes that support technical education training. This will also help us achieve this year’s International Youth Day theme of ‘Youth Building Peace’.
From Monitor
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