A ray of hope has fallen on the young generation of Soroti district as projects initiated by the National Female Youth MP, Anna Adeke Ebaju begin to yield results.
A total of 188 youth in Soroti district have this weekend been awarded with certificates and start-ups after completing a one- year course in different vocational skills under Adeke Education Foundation programme.
The pilot programme that was initiated last year, saw a number of youth across Gweri and Tubur sub counties enrol for courses which included Tailoring and Cutting Garments, Bricklaying and Concrete Practice, Carpentry and Joinery, Hair dressing among others.
On Friday 25th October, 2019, a total of 111 youth from Gweri sub county were rolled out and set to begin their own employment activities they were trained in.
During the ceremony at Angopet, Gweri sub county, Adeke gave UgShs 1.5 million each to five different youths groups as start up capital, equipment Carpentry and Joinery, bakery and 20 sawing machines for those who were skilled in Tailoring and Cutting Garments.
On Saturday 26th, 77 students Students across Tubur Sub County in Dakabela County also received certificates and other items after completing Skills and Vocational Education Training.
The Makindye East MP, Ibrahim Kasozi, who was the Chief guest urged the youth to always work hard with the skills attained in order to take good care for their elders and praised Adeke’s visionary leadership of skilling the youth.
Kasozi in turn offered two manual sewing machines, and one electronic, a welding machine, and gave UgShs 300,000 for buying a tool box for carpentry and joinery team.
He further pledged 100 iron sheets for the construction of the girl’s dormitory in Tubur Primary school.
Adeke encouraged youth to utilize well the skills they have received in order to get out of poverty.
She gave a startup a capital of UgShs 100,000 to each of the students in their various departments and pledged 10millions shillings for opening more skills training centers in the three sub counties of Kamuda, Asuret, and Arapai
Meanwhile, she also awarded P.7 candidates of Tubur primary schools with scholastic materials and words of wisdom ahead of their PLE exams.
The next phase of the program Adeke Education Foundation will be rolled out in the sub counties of Arapai, Asuret and Kamuda and over 1,000 youth and women are expected to benefit from it.
Rev George Robert Okodu of Church of Uganda called upon the beneficiaries to make the best use of the skills the MP fully helped them acquire. He was speaking during the award ceremony at Angopet in Gweri sub county.
Why Adeke Education Foundation
According to the Youth MP, the poverty indices of Teso have become so alarming in that, in the past two years, Teso has been ranked to be growing at a very slow rate with poverty increasing to 41%.
Many reasons account for the poverty that our people face and they range from historical injustices that people suffered, for instance the insurgency that saw the rustling of cattle and total impoverishing of Iteso.
Adeke adds that the clear cut deliberate lack of focus by government to put more emphasis on income generation activities to Teso coupled with infrastructure development has also greatly impacted to the high rates of poverty in the sub region.
She further highlights the other salient agent of poverty as the mind-set of the people themselves also to a large extent accounts for the poverty- many young people under look some jobs.
“What we need to do as people is to focus on improving household incomes so that in time, we can have stronger and more sustainable families whose standards of living is decent and can enable us to comfortably afford the basic needs of life,” said Adeke.
According to her, she is focusing on entrepreneurship as a driver to improving household incomes and it is mainly geared towards women and youth.
Why Women and Youth?
Adeke explains that most of the households are run by women and the other reason is that the youth are the future that Teso belongs to.
“It is in this spirit that I have been encouraging and sponsoring entrepreneurship ideas among women and youth,” explained Adeke.
