Empower Child Domestic Workers Through Education

Nayiga is 18 years old. She was identified during the mapping exercise by PLA of children engaged in child labour specifically Domestic work. She was working as a waitress in her aunt’s restaurant at Nsambya. Nayiga is an orphan who had dropped out of school before completing her ordinary level due to lack of school fees and this made life difficult. After sitting in her home village for a long time, her aunt asked her to help her with domestic work at home which included washing utensils, clothes and taking care of her children. Since there was no future for nagiya doing domestic chores, her aunt decided to employ her in her restaurant where she would earn UGX 30,000 (Thirty thousand shillings) per month. However, the money could not cater for all her basic needs nor take her back to school.

She was then rescued, counseled and enrolled at Kyebando Vocational Training Center for a six months catering course which was her passion. Due to the passion she had, her class teacher would sometimes assign her tasks to train her fellow classmates. During her leisure time, she could bake cakes for her classmates and friends on their birthday and graduation parties and this would earn her UGX 30,000 per cake. After her graduation, she got market for cakes and started baking and selling cakes for her neighbours which earn her around 20,000 – 30,000 per cake depending on the size. However, this came to a standstill because she did not have an oven and only had one charcoal stove that could sometimes burn the cakes hence reducing on the demand of cakes from customers.

Although the customers are few, she still bakes cakes on order and small scale. She is now a waitress in a good and decent restaurant called Fahulain Natete town a Kampala suburb. She cooks food for lunch and supper and earns UGX 120,000 (One hundred and twenty thousand shillings) per monthly paid on a weekly installment of 30,000/=per week where she saves UGX 10,000 (Ten thousand shillings) a week to buy an oven and start a confectionary. She thanks PLA for taking her back to school because she is now empowered and can earn a living from the skills learnt at the institute.