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.