STRENGHT OF THE NATION – WHY YOU SHOULD EMPOWER YOUTHS IN UGANDA
Webmasters November 12, 2020 No Comments

STRENGHT OF THE NATION – WHY YOU SHOULD EMPOWER YOUTHS IN UGANDA

Statistics show that Uganda has the world`s youth population with 78% of the population being below the age of 30.  As of 2020, Uganda`s population is estimated to be at 45.7 million people, and 78%. Of this means 35.6 million people in Uganda are under the age of 30 years. For a humanitarian, that becomes the greatest resource that a country can ever have. Yet when misused, abused, or underused, that can significantly become the greatest threat to the development of any country.

Youth is the strength of a nation because they are the most energetic, most creative, when watered right; they can be the most fruitful. It is for this reason that they should be given the most attention and focus. Because they are the custodians of the future. The future state of affairs in any country be it political, social, or economic is 100% in their hands. So if they are denied the relevant information, and knowledge that they need to become productive, the future is at great risk of collapse.

EMPOWERMENT

Youth empowerment

Youths in Uganda

Empowerment has been defined as “the process of becoming stronger and more confident. Especially in controlling one`s life and claiming one`s rights”. This implies that empowerment is broad and it touches major aspects of a person`s life including but not limited to; social, mental, economic, political, spiritual, emotional, etc. Even though the youth make up the largest percentage of Uganda`s population.

Numbers of Youth in Uganda.

Sadly, the unemployment rate of the youth is still at 13.3%. Statistics show that 83.5% of the Ugandan population aged between 15-29 works in informal jobs. This means that most of them are not regulated or protected by the state in their work. As a result, they are more exposed to poor working conditions, exploitation by their employers. And in some cases, they become prone to illegalities such as human trafficking, all with the hopes of getting better employment opportunities overseas.

Youth, when misused and abused, can become the most dangerous threat eat to the development of any country. This is because if they are unemployed or underemployed they resolve to more drastic measures.  Such as crime and illegal means of earning a living. When youth are excluded from the political scene of any country, out of frustration they can cause political unrest in the whole country. It is for this reason that a lot of focus should be put on empowering them and involving them in every aspect of the nation. They deserve to be heard, and they must be included in the problem-solving process of society.

Youth should be empowered because they are good executors of programs mainly because of their strength and vigor. It becomes very disappointing when the elders in a society exclude the youth. This is because they view them as a threat to their gain and benefit. The elders in society should take up the role of mentorship and mentor the youth and prepare them to take the wheel into the future. That way, we can be assured of continuity when it comes to development.

Youth empowerment

Youth empowerment should be adopted as a serious agenda through capacity building and training, mentorship, employment, and encouragement. They should be given a platform to take part in the leadership of any community and their human rights should be respected.

As a way of reducing the crime rates in any country, youth must be kept busy through engagement in productive work. In Uganda, agriculture has been known as the biggest employing sector. Youth should be incorporated into the different sectors in the country and they should continuously be included.

Youth empowerment should be taken seriously and more money should be allocated to do this. The education sector should be manipulated in such a way that it encourages creativity among the youth, to produce more job creators than job seekers. By so doing, they need to hire for expatriates will be reduced as more of our own will be employed in every sector of the economy.

It is also key to empower the youth because by so doing, the other resources of a country can be put to use by those who are affected by the problems and challenges in society. Those who have been pressed by the pangs of poverty can be able to tailor local solutions to the local problems and create employment opportunities that fit into their societies. This implements all problems easily because they are embraced by the local people in the community. And they can ensure that it works.

It is also, important to know that one does not need to be in a position of leadership or influence to empower youth. All that is needed is to have passion and you can do this through peer-to-peer influence.

Empower the youth, because they are the strength of any nation.

Teaching in Uganda
Webmasters November 2, 2020 120 Comments

TEACHING GOES BEYOND THE PROFESSION.

Teaching in Uganda

Teaching goes beyond the profession

A lot of attention has been put on education and not much on the educator or teacher. Education is both systematic and progressive and without education or learning, an individual is bound to become a public nuisance. Nelson Mandela once said that ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ And truly for the world to change, much more emphasis needs to be put on education and teaching.

For education to take place, there must be a teacher, and sometimes life is our teacher and other times it is individuals. We must learn that teaching goes beyond the profession. A teacher has been defined as a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue. So it`s not about the profession as much as it is about the person. It has been discovered that the first teacher any child has is his/her mother. Right from the womb, the fetus begins to pick signals from their mother and these signals are translated to affect their development. It’s the individuals that we meet on a daily that become teachers to us because from our various interactions with them, we learn to deal with many stresses and how to relate with people.

Teaching goes beyond the profession because, for a teacher to have a long-lasting impact, there must be passion, love, vision, a dream and the game-changer attitude within a person. A true teacher looks beyond what they will benefit from the service that they give and focus on what the learner has to gain. The beauty of it is that we don`t need to sit in classrooms for us to be teachers or learners because every day we meet potential teachers and students. It is our attitude towards them that determines what they will at the end of the interaction, walk away with.

Love and hatred, morality and ethics, good and bad, kindness and mercy; all these are not taught and learnt in a classroom. Some of these are learnt on the streets, others in market places and others from inconvenient places.

It means that we are all students and we are all teachers. We will always be teachers because it is our experiences that we teach and impart into others. Our interactions with others, the places we have been to and the events that take place in our lives make us teachers.

Some people choose to take up the teaching profession so that they can mentor, guide and impart skills into others as a way of changing them. Then some people are teachers at heart, and they go out of their way to make it possible for other people to become better. They source out for information that will empower others, and they look beyond the situations and limitations they might face and adopt better means of engaging their learners.

Many of these teachers fall under the informal education sector and they teach tremendously well. They teach soft skills, vocational skills, morals, ethics and values in society that group the emotional and psychological being of many individuals.

Now that you know that you are a teacher and the world is full of your students, you must build upon yourself and your interaction with the world. Become intentional about everything that you do because like it or not, the world is watching. And even though not everyone may care, there is a high probability that many people are picking the signals that you give off and these inform their world views. Be kind.

Sometimes we want to share our skills and are passionate about making an impact on hearts that are ready and willing to receive from us but we are limited by whom to contact. Look and believe, then you will see those grounds. And if it so happens that you are not a teacher by profession, find a community to volunteer. Talk to the local leaders in a particular region, let them know what your passion is and the motivation behind it and set it rolling.

If your passion stirs the desire to travel in order to do so, don`t hesitate, take a bus or a plane and travel to the grounds that will receive the seed you want to sow. We are sure that there are many people with a desire to learn but have limited access to teachers.  These will gladly receive you with open hands.

You could visit Volunteering in Uganda and let us give you the opportunity to teach under our community Development Program . Be it a skill, a story, a song or any lesson that is valuable and relevant for the social, mental and spiritual development of the child and other community members; we will avail the learners to you.

We are all teachers because it is much more than the profession. So let`s teach and forever learn.