Report from BHW Uganda Partnership Facilitator

Key Person: Thomas Lubari and Joyce Jaba

Recent Events

I met with Thomas and Joyce on 4th July to discuss the vocational training programme and how it is going.  I also had a wonderful opportunity to visit with some of the current students at Bethel Vocational Training Institute in the centre of Jinja and the Nile Vocational Training Institute which is on the opposite side of the Nile River.  There are presently ten students in the vocational training programme.  Some of the training courses are two or three years long, and some just one year.  At present there are two people doing motor mechanics at the Nile Training Institute, one doing secretarial, one doing tailoring, two doing electrical and three others, the details of which I did not get.  

The results to date have been encouraging.  Over the course of the afternoon I heard about Rachel, whom I interviewed at the start of last year, who has now completed her catering training and is working in that field.  I also met Sisco Chemusto at her sewing shop in Njeru Village (see report below).  

Christopher Goma, whom I reported on last year, is presently working in cosmetology in Juba and is involved in some outreach activities there.  I met another woman in the marketplace, Jacinta, who studied IT last year.  She has graduated but has been unable to find work in her chosen field.  She is, however, working and assisting Joyce with the administration of the micro-finance programme (UGA04b) now that Winnie has married and is unable to do this anymore.  Jacinta is also working in some form of inventory management for a business.

Stella Amugi, whom I met last year, also passed by the church and I had the opportunity to talk with her.  She, together with another graduate from last year, is in the process of setting up a cosmetology business.  They have access to a micro-loan from the programme which is available to them to acquire the equipment to start the business.  They are, however, doing some of the work from their home behind the church.  She is clearly very happy with the outcome of the training.

I was obviously not able to interview all the people but you will see reports on some of them below.

Overall I was very encouraged with the calibre of the students presently in training that I interviewed (three) and to hear some of the outcomes from last year.  Some of the trainees (particularly the motor mechanics and electrical) are halfway through a two year course.  I was not able to interview them because they were in class.

Personal Stories

Helen Aleu

Helen is 24 and goes to Life Gospel Church in Njeru.  She is studying computer science and is at the end of her first semester.  It is a one year course and is going well for her.  Her hope, once she has completed the training (which involves familiarity with basic software packages – Word, Excel, computing skills, desktop publishing etc.) is either to find employment, or to start her own business. She is from Soroti originally and has been a Christian for six years.

Julius Malinga

Julius is 25 and married with one child.  He is originally from Bukedea, near Soroti but now lives in Njeru.

Julius is doing the same course as Helen and is finding the course extremely good.  He has been impressed with the quality of the teaching and says that it is extremely good compared to some vocational training institutes.  He wants to use the qualification that he obtains to assist him in his ministry and preaching, and also would like to look at becoming a secretary or find a similar type of employment.  He said that it is not too difficult to find employment in Jinja.

It is probably worth noting that Njeru is among the poorest of the urban poor areas in Jinja.

Florence Konga 

Florence is 20 years old and the secretarial course that she is embarking on will take 2½ years.  The course is going well and she is getting good marks. She belongs to the Life Gospel Church in Njeru and has come from Koboko in the north.  She has been a Christian for ten years but is probably one of the people whom Thomas and Joyce would identify as being “vulnerable” if they were not provided with employment opportunities and hope.

Graduates

Stella Amugi:  Initially Stella was in her working clothes and did not want to be photographed. Subsequently she came back to the church about an hour later dressed in her good clothes and allowed me to take her photograph.  She is really grateful for the vocational training she received and is presently in the process of starting her own business, together with another graduate (Eva) whom I interviewed last year.

Sisco Chemusto:  I had a delightful meeting with Sisco at her small shop.  She has an electric sewing machine and does clothing alterations and makes her own clothes which she sells.  The clothing that she was producing was of a good standard and she said the demand is good.  She was extremely happy and proud.  She has accessed a small loan from the micro-loan programme and Joyce informed me that her brother has now come to join her and that she is paying her brother’s school fees and is able to meet all of her living expenses.

Partnership's Influence within the Community

It is always hard to gauge this.  There have been some disappointments with the micro-loan programme and possibly with one of the people on the vocational training programme.  At the same time, walking through the Njeru market on a couple of occasions it is clear that both Thomas and Joyce are highly respected in this difficult and transient community.  There were a large number of very warm and positive interactions and it is clear that they are well loved and respected in the local community.

Thomas and Joyce have made the decision that the vocational training programme and the micro-loan programme will, in future, only be used for people within the church community.  They find the Njeru community too transient to be able to maintain appropriate control and accountability.  I fully support this decision, particularly as the church itself is experiencing good growth. I do not think that this limits the effectiveness of the vocational training programme at all, and probably helps by establishing a better accountability mechanism.

Ideas for the Future

There is no plan to increase the number of students going into the training programme.  There has not been much progress with reaching arrangements for students to repay part of their course tuition fees once they are in employment. However the course is still in the process of setting up and has not been running for that long.  This is an issue which still needs to be resolved.

Current Issues and Challenges

1) The transient nature of the Njeru community, given that it is a squatter community, makes it difficult for Thomas and Joyce to maintain control and accountability if the students go outside the Life Gospel Church network.

2) Having talked to Jacinta it is clear that there are some issues with obtaining employment in graduate fields.  I am not sure how difficult they are but this is no doubt an ongoing issue for some people.

3) Getting some commitment from graduating students, once they have employment, to commit to repay part of the fees.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) I was delighted to see the successful outcomes from some of the graduates.  Clearly several of them are taking steps, even if they cannot obtain employment, to set up their own small businesses and are highly motivated to do so.

2) As far as I could gauge, I found the quality of the new trainees to be quite high.  They were very easy to engage with and clearly doing well in their studies.

3) There is an ongoing issue with how to make a vocational training programme more self-sustaining.  I do not think that it will ever be completely self-sustaining but may need to support itself better, and graduate students should be expected to repay part of their fees. 

Comments

This programme is running well.  It is clearly meeting a need in the community and many of the students identified that they would have no other options or employment prospects if it were not for the vocational training. The young women would in Joyce’s words otherwise also become ‘vulnerable’.