By Eastafrican gazette
UGANDA: Suriat Sandosham, the President of Heifer International, announced that Uganda is to benefit from a new initiative called “Stimulating Agribusiness for Youth Employment” (SAYE) in the East Part of the country specially in Busoga sub region.
The project aims to empower young individuals by providing them with the necessary support to transition into meaningful employment opportunities through incubation.
Sandosham mentioned that the new project focuses on agribusiness and will be executed in collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation and the Consortium for enhancing University Responsiveness to agribusiness Development (CURAD) incubation centre.
During his visit to Uganda, Sandosham expressed his admiration for the effective efforts in providing youth with opportunities to contribute to the economic growth.
She said the economic strength of the country relies on promoting youth to boost the economy as witnessed by CURAD incubation centre at Namanve Industrial park.
She was surprised to see the creative idea of pumpkin flour packed for consumption for people who cannot eat food due to health conditions.
She acknowledged milk products, animal feed, soft drinks and eats made from potatoes and Bananas with markets Canada and USA, all as a result of youth innovations.
Sandosham said Heifer International id to create opportunities for youths to bridge the gap of employment to make their own incomes by making high quality products.
She noted that under the new project they are addressing market system barriers for youth to work while building and strengthening systems to enable youth to secure dignified incomes from their products.
William Matovu, the Country Director Heifer International Uganda said the Heifer International President was impressed with CURAD method of work to encourage value addition and creating jobs for youth especially women.
“You have heard that you do not just wake up to go into business but one has to be prepared before going into business after knowing proper ways managing it. You must know the clients you will be dealing with,” he said.
He said the new project of SAYE in Busoga will ease the problem of employment challenge and empowering young people to promote their ideas into realities.
He said many youth have been lacking how their ideas would be developed, but with CURAD this possible.
The project targets to empower 250,000 young people aged 16-35 (70% females and 3% youth with disabilities for 5 years).
The project is to be implemented in 11 districts of Jinja, Mayuge, Iganga, Kamuli, Kaliro, Namutumba, Bugweri, Luka, Buyende, Bugiri and Namayingo.
This project is will be supported by Mastercard Foundation and consortium partners including ASIGMA, Financial Sector Deepening Uganda (FSD Uganda), Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises-Uganda (FSME) and CURAD through the five year.
The Executive Director CURAD, Apollo Segawa said they are open to support any youth coming for an agribusiness idea.
Currently over 500 youth have been trained and own agribusiness enterprises countrywide.
Segawa was of a view that government and any other partners should channel their funding to organizations dealing already with youth than channeling it into other institutions.
“Let government channel funding to organisation dealing with youths than send it to government institutions or Banks. It is not easy for youth to access this money meant for youth development. We target new applicants and established graduates, small scale firms and the general public interested in agribusiness. Those who have good projects are mentored and taken though the process of incubation until they reach the market for their products,” he said.
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