Uplifting Ugandan Out of School Youth Though IGA's

Since the commencement of this project, there has been a steady progress and improvement in the livelihoods of the beneficiaries. The group approach has proved efficient supporting the youth through Income Generating Activities. Numerous profound achievements have been witnessed by the beneficiaries, and from the interactions we had with the group leaders, they emphasized this saying “We have been able to gain technical skills from group members as we consult each other for support, promoted skills training among fellow peers. We have also made some savings and accessed credit from our groups and for better marketing of our produce as well as established group coffee nurseries which we sell out and earn some money and sometimes get seedlings and expand on our nursery beds.”To improve on the output generated by the IGAs, Kitovu Mobile has constructed 20 rain water harvesting tanks of 25,000 liters capacity for collecting water runoff for production this is aimed at complimenting the accessibility of water throughout the year by the group members; this has reduced the impact of drought on animal and crop production. To ensure maintenance of the tanks a leader is chosen from the group to be the main over seer of the constructed tank. Besides that, the groups were provided with10 Dairy cattle (in–calf heifers) this was complimented with the construction of zero grazing units to the groups to enhance their farming activities in an integrated approach, the group members were encouraged to access land and latter they were provided with 4000 coffee seedlings as income generating activities. Agricultural training was coupled with reproductive health skills which included sanitary pad making among others. It should be noted that the Group members sit weekly and save an amount ranging from 100-500 UGX. Group projects are undertaken as well as individual income generating projects. Projects include growing of crops such as maize, coffee and beans, horticultural crops like tomatoes, cabbages and green paper. On the side of animals youth keep pigs, poultry and cattle.

Restoring hope is one of the significant achievements in the past period. The youth can see beyond the agricultural support and engage themselves in other productive activities like craft making. On top of the various trainings and support to the out school youth they have gone a step ahead and start making crafts as an extra activity to supplement their income during the off season. 60% of the group members are now making crafts in form of utensil racks which they sell on the market day that comes every Friday of the week. This idea came as a result of training in Micro enterprise development that was identified to be paramount to this category of youth and passed on to them.

Using the savings from the diverse income generating projects they can now meet their day-to-day needs which include supporting their siblings with school requirements, buying supplementary foods and clothes for themselves.

Unlike in the past there is reduced redundancy among the youth and value for time. Thanks to all our supporters in this regard.