UGANDA: Caritas Holds Workshop to Curb Youth Unemployment

GULU, NOVEMBER 9, 2018 (CISA)-Caritas Uganda has held a workshop in to equip the youth in Northern Uganda with livelihood skills and to promote self-employment opportunities.

The workshop held in Gulu, was organized in collaboration with Caritas Norway, and the Norwegian aquaculture company, Hauge Aqua.

According to the Program Coordinator of Caritas Uganda, Helen Chanikare, the main objective of the workshop was to give more prominence to youth entrepreneurship and sustain awareness on employment opportunities as a means of combating youth unemployment and under-employment in the region.

“Today, the youth form the bigger percentage of our population but they are suffering because they are not fully engaged in determining their own destiny. Young people, when employed, represent a tremendous resource for the holistic development of the country; they bring energy, creativity, and imagination to many nation-building tasks. Our resolve is to make them key players in all aspects of life by giving them self-employment skills,” she said.

She added that Caritas Uganda will remain committed to contributing its part to assisting Government in resolving the unemployment challenge by embarking on initiatives that enable the youth to become self-reliant.

Chanikare also noted that the youth needed meaningful occupations and employment in order to build stable and sustainable communities.

Stakeholders including the Government were urged to integrate the uneducated unemployed youth into the labour market through apprenticeship programmes, agriculture and aquaculture trainings, among others.

The October 25, workshop under the theme: Building Skills in Aquaculture attracted over 40 participants consisting of church leaders and government leaders.