In a bid to achieve youth employability and self-reliance, Oxfam in Uganda and partners under the Global Jet project recently distributed startup kits to three groups of certified students in the three vocational training institutes of Lodonga Technical, St. Jude (Omugo) and Inde Technical School).

The kits were distributed at the institutions where the Luigi Guissani Foundation – the project’s lead partner, trained the first cohort of 75 students on energy-saving stoves and solar installation under the DANIDA SP II program.

The items distributed included briquette-making machines, bags of cement, tricycles, weighing scales, water tanks and metallic rails among others.

Speaking during the distribution of the start-up kits items in Terego, John Tabule, the district energy and environment Officer thanked Oxfam and the partners for the great support in delivering their impact-based projects to the communities in the district and expressed the full backing of the organization to the project.

“As a district, we will fully support the monitoring of the groups formed and be able to link the youth for further opportunities at the district level. “He said.

Janet Munduru, the Inspector for schools who attended the distribution exercise on behalf of the Terego District Education officer lauded Oxfam for complementing the government’s vision 2040 on ’Skilling Ugandans’ and pledged her commitment to the group so that the support given doesn’t go to waste.

Additionally, the short courses which involved 8 days of intense training and a further 4 months of refresher training culminated in the certification of the students by the Directorate of Industrial Training and were meant to impart practical skills to support the students in their bid for income generation.

The items were complimentary of previous work done under the Humanitarian, Development & Peace Initiative for crises affected populations in Uganda (DANIDA SP II) project that is funded by the Danish International Development Agency in the refugee hosting districts of Yumbe, Terego and Madi-Okollo, where Oxfam is working with the partners, refugee and host communities to implement initiatives revolving around Peacebuilding, livelihoods and education.