By Jimmy Ezra Okello | Innovator and Project Leader
Today, 20th March 2024, temperatures in Lira, my district of residence in Lango in Northern Uganda, are soaring high at 38 degrees Celcius. It is forecast, moreover, that these sweltering temperatures will sustain through the next two weeks, with humidity reaching as high as 80 percent.
In the past, normally, the rains for the first rainy season would have already be here by 15th March and we would have planted our first season crops. But I am sitting here paralysed with fear scared to plant. I can never forget how in 2021, we, in Lango were left food insecure when prolonged drought devasted our crops.
Some of us had “hired gardens and planted soya beans, potatoes, beans and maize, but lost all due to the erratic weather … You cannot imagine how the crops in the gardens were – the sim sim (sesame), groundnuts, beans, sunflower, were all dried up.”
Things are not getting better. Last year, 2023, our home area, Lango, suffered prolonged dry spells – four months in a row without rains that are appropriate for farming. When the rains eventually came, at the wrong time, they were too heavy, flooded gardens and destroyed crops in-field.
Increasingly, my district of residence, has changed from being the food basket of our region to one that is forced to import staple food items, such as beans, from other regions. We can no longer depend solely and primarily on agriculture for our food security. We cannot reliably grow the bulk of what we eat; and increasingly we must buy to eat.
We need to find non-agriculture-based ways in which to make money that we can use to buy food. For me and hundreds more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in Lango, becoming welders would provide us with sustainable livelihoods.
I am grateful to our donors who have already made a contribution in support of our establising a welding workshop to provide apprenticeships to disadvantaged young people in Uganda. We continue to ask for your support in order to make our project a reality. Together we can and will positively impact on the lives of hundreds of young people – enabling them earn incomes to provide for their families.
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By Norah Owaraga | Project Leader and Managing Director
By Norah Owaraga | Managing Director and Mentor
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