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Commonwealth project to give skills to Northern Uganda Youth

26 October 2006

Youth in conflict torn Northern Uganda are being offered vocational and life skills through a new project implemented by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Youth in conflict torn Northern Uganda are being offered vocational and life skills through a new project implemented by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

The first phase of the Northern Uganda Youth Development Project aims to transfer agricultural skills to young people affected by the conflict. Courses in tailoring, carpentry, brick-laying, hairdressing, and other skills will follow.

The director of the Secretariat’s Youth Affairs Division, Dr Fatiha Serour, said the scheme aims to ensure that vulnerable youth become productive in order to lead normal and profitable lives in their communities.

“It targets disadvantaged youth, such as the internally displaced, those that have laid down guns and returned home, youth out of school, those who have lost educational and employment opportunities due to extreme poverty and the conflict,” she stated.

The local manager of the project, Joseph Okema, announced that the youth have already harvested some 40 bags of rice from the model farm at their Koro Lapainat base.

He said that the youth are trained in planting methods, selection of viable seeds and planting materials, mulching and other skills.

“We are training them in these basic skills, because 20 years of war have left our youth without even the knowledge of how to dig. This is because life in the internally displaced people’s camps did not allow them to attend to gardens, or learn any useful skills. And it is worse for those who were formerly abducted,” Mr Okema added.

Dr Serour, who recently returned from Northern Uganda, was struck by the extent to which the conflict has affected youth in the region.

“I was moved by the stories of child mothers: the young girls who were abducted and forced to bear children. The conflict has deprived these girls of the opportunity to go to school and as such, it has made them easy targets and victims of violence,” she said.

The 20-year-old conflict in Northern Uganda has led to the displacement of more than 1.5 million people and abduction of thousands of children.