Kampala, Uganda | By Michael Wandati | As part of ongoing efforts to prepare Ugandans with skills they need in the employment world and skills they may use to create their own employment for self-reliance, Good Care Uganda Foundation (GCUF) is equipping over 500 youths with intense four to six months vocational skills training free of charge in areas of; carpentry and joinery, tailoring, Information Technology (IT), bakery, hair dressing, arts and crafts, mechanical engineering, electrical and civil engineering, welding and fabrication, plumbing, brick laying and construction and among others.
Good Care Uganda Foundation (GCUF) Executive Director, Lucky Guma Moses told journalists during the launch in Kampala on Saturday 25th, January 2020 at their headquarters office in Muyenga Tank Hill that the youth need to be provided with skills desired in production and services.
“Good Care Uganda Foundation (GCUF) believes in empowering youth with skills that lead to employment and employability. It has been known that the service industry in Uganda is currently ill equipped to handle clients with the professionalism and level of customer care required leading to loss of clientele and subsequent loss of business and opportunities to both the skilled and unskilled sectors,” said Mr Lucky at a free skilling workshop, under the Empowerment and Livelihood programme organized on the same day of the launch.
“More to that, where the youth decide to venture into employment, they are not well equipped with adequate career selection guidance, personal presentation and Curriculum Vitae (CV) preparation skills, thus making them not to miss out on good opportunities,” he added.
The programme is aimed at unlocking the productive potential of Ugandan youth. Targeting the youth and training them through the skilling programme, will entail short courses for senior four leavers, school drop-outs and graduates, leading to the award of practical qualifications equivalent to those in formal system of education.
At the launch, Mr Lucky Guma Moses said this initiative comes at a time when Uganda’s industrialization continues to be sluggish, consequently unemployment remains high because of youth are not able to get jobs.
He also said that Good Care Uganda Foundation (GCUF) in partnership with Empower East Africa – a company that aims to rebrand Uganda’s agriculture through empowering smallholder, medium and large scale farmers to export demand driven agriculture products, they are going to train 350 women in agriculture as a business to be economically self-sustaining by increasing their household incomes.
Mr Lucky notes that targeting the youth and women by training them with the required technical skills, will change the education system from white collar trainees to a competence based education and training. The primary goal of the programme is to assist the youth achieve economic and social empowerment, and become agents of changing their families and communities.
He says the programme will go down to the sub-counties to benefit the poor by equipping them with income generating skills to live a better life.
About Good Care Uganda Foundation
Good Care Uganda Foundation (GCUF) has grown to become one of the largest not-for-profit Non- Governmental Organization (NGO) in the country since its launch in 2000.
Good Care Uganda Foundation partners with organizations to help meet basic needs of the population in Uganda with a focus on communities which are home to some of the world’s most economically vulnerable persons.
This work includes providing education, food security and nutrition, medical care, socio-economic empowerment, psycho-social support and capacity building. GCUF are passionate about creating positive change in our communities.
The organisation believes in the inherent potential in human beings that they ensure effective delivery of health, nutrition, education and social services as vehicles of social change.
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Most children from surrounding high density suburbs and informal settlements are exposed to crammed living conditions, (indecent accommodation), poor sanitary conditions, inadequate food and rampant drug and alcohol abuse. The majority of these children are orphaned and vulnerable living in single parent headed, grandparent headed or child headed households.
Good Care Uganda Foundation community development approach aims at addressing historical imbalances through collective empowerment, facilitating processes that help the poor, vulnerable and marginalized to regain control over their lives.