Vocation education for youth poverty alleviation and empowerment project (VE-YPA-EP)
THE PROJECT HISTORY
This project was designed to address community based constraints associated with the youth through training (skills development) for their sustainable living, self development and improved health which are empowerment characteristics towards community development. This is done in areas of education with a view on vocation education focusing on poverty eradication among the youth. The project is 2 years in operation and has two operational training sites in Kasese district which is the project zone western Uganda, Rwenzori region.
On that note therefore, the foundation under this initiative considered the youth being vulnerable basing on the following criteria.
- Child mothers of age (15-18)
- Sing young mothers of age (15-18)
- Total orphans below 32 years
- Youth vulnerable by HIV and AIDS (effected and affected)
- Youth vulnerable by poverty
- Widows of age 15-32
Under this initiative through Zion Life Skills Training Centre (ZLSTC) which is a result of this project, currently the foundation offers the following skills.
- Manual type writing skills and computer applications (ICT)
- Tailoring and gamete cutting designing
- Knitting and sweater designing
- Clay energy saving stoves making (modeling and pottery/ceramics)
- Salon management and cosmetology
However, there is need for more skills by the community which are not provided and constrained by lack of training tools.
The initiative for this project was as a result of an increased population of out of school non skilled youth. Its need identification was by our outfield and need identification team together with a number of the identified project beneficiaries. Discovered was that most of the youth drop out of school due to persistent poverty at household level, domestic burdens become to much upon them or that they are family heads that they can not balance domestic affairs with education. It was also noticed that elderly caregivers of the orphaned girls persuade them into early marriages for one reason or another. Either acquires bride wealth to solve their financial problems or depends on the families where such young girls have been married. Our data base 2011 research analysis in Bugoye Sub County Kasese district revealed 401 being youth mothers of which 75% were below 18 years thus described as children according to Ugandan law. It’s a form of violence afflicted to such girls and often condoned with implications of child survival. Such children bodies are not fully developed to accommodate pregnancy hence high risks of death for both child and mother.
Not only was that, further noted was that most youth feel disappointed with life which ends some of them in suicide acts due to unemployment, reduced economic opportunities, poor government policies on matters concerning the youth, persistent poverty at household level, family influence and persistent inflation hitting the economy which makes it even harder, making living conditions high to be contained by the unemployed and non skilled youth and other associates that retard the engagement and participation of the youth in economic development. Most youth end up practicing unsocial behaviors as a means of earning a living. Female youth end up in commercial sex business and the boys conflicting with the law due to lack of entrepreneurial skills and less employment opportunities which environment its self is constrained by STDs and HIV/AIDS that ends most of them in prison and death respectively.
Therefore, it was considered as a big area of concern by this foundation (EFCO-DEV) which later resulted into the establishment of Zion Life Skills Training Centre (ZLSTC) in which the out school youth can be curbed to under go different entrepreneurial vocational based skills for life and hence increasing youth participation in economic activities for their sustainable living, development, improved health and poverty reduction among the youth which forms a heart of a right-based approach to human progress and as a means of achieving our ultimate goals.
PROJECT PARTNERS
Zion Friends Anti Aids Club
National Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS - NACWOLA (Community mobilizing agency)