Educate and Empower in Uganda with Nurture Africa

Hello,

I hope that this message finds you well!

On behalf of the team in Uganda and Ireland but most especially the students gaining an education at the Nurture Africa Vocational Training Centre, I would like to extend our sincere appreciation for your support.

Before providing an update regarding the new academic year, I would like to let you know that over 120 students graduated from the Vocational Training Centre last year across our Carpentry, Catering, Hairdressing and Tailoring courses.

Already, our team in Uganda is hearing stories and meeting graduates locally who have found employment or have established their own business (the additional education provided by our team related to business planning and book keeping is a vital additional support for these first time entrepreneurs!). This provides huge motivation for everyone working at our organisation!

The 2024 academic year commenced last month and 150 young people have been attached across each of our five courses. This year, will see the first graduates from our biowaste recycling course which commenced in 2023.

We must not forget that these young people are living in very challenging circumstances and none of them had the opportunity to complete formal education. This could be as a result of living with HIV, being a young mother or becoming the head of a household as a child themselves. The Vocational Training Centre provides them with a second shot at education and is provided free of charge. The risks that exist for these young people are never too far away so empowering them, through education, with the ability to earn a living and become self reliant pushes those risks into the background. These young people are a credit to themselves.  

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Our vocational training centre continues to expand and provide opportunities for "at risk" youth in Wakiso District and this is in no small thanks to you for the support that you have shown to this project and the young people supported through the vocational training centre.

We are continuing to enrol 150 students per year and I am delighted to report that our new Bio-waste Recycling course, that we launched at the beginning of 2023 is proving very popular with the students.

We have also been extremely busy with our corporate partners, Deloitte over the past number of months. Ten of the companies staff (who travelled to Uganda for 2 weeks in October) have been working with our five course coordinators; focused upon building a strategy in order to support each course develop its own social enterprise model over the next five years, which can ultimately ensure that whilst students are learning a new skill, products and services are made available to the wider community in order to generate income and ultimately make the vocational centre completely self-sufficient.

Nurture Africa also took the opportunity to work with ten other vocational centres within Nansana Municipality and offer each the chance to have a business plan and strategic review conducted by the Deloitte team. The teams high level of expertise has ultimately supported each centre and an additional 600+ vocational students learn in centres that are less focused and dependant on external funding and have a defined path towards sustainability.