"I Was Given a Chance to Influence Change", Moses Kinyera's Story
Moses Kinyera is lucky to be among the project participants of the youth skilling project. The impact of the project has elevated him into the role of a community influencer.
“We are 7 people from different villages who were elected as community influencers. Our role is to sensitize youths on issues affecting them like sexual harassment, school dropouts, teenage pregnancies and any other. We also intervene in such matters in case they happen such that a lasting solution is got.’’ The 26-year-old explains.
Moses moves around his community spreading mindset change and being a good role model to others. Before all this, Moses was too shy that he couldn’t speak to anyone when he had any pressing issue and he couldn’t even stand before a crowd but with the activities at the skilling center, all that changed.
““I was given a chance to speak at a youth parliament and I was able to air out my view and people clapped. That really motivated me to be confident and I started expressing myself freely in public.” ”
Moses has received several training courses in liquid soap making, sim-sim paste making, and computer to mention but a few.
He however stresses the training in smart agriculture and backyard farming which has helped him. He has a small garden of tomatoes he keeps at his home for both commercial and home use. Furthermore, he used smart agriculture practices in his garden when he planted soya beans and he has so far harvested 200 kilograms of Soya beans.
‘My harvest is at the bulking centre waiting to be advertised and sold off at a very good price” He adds. The bulking center was established to help youths market their produce at a good price. “Before vendors would buy from us cheaply and cheat us but now, we put our produce together and we are helped in marketing which fetches us a good price” Moses affirms. He believes this will increase the household incomes of the participants and encourage agriculture because the bulking centre will have catered for the marketing aspect.
Moses sees the project with a vision that not everyone sees “After the training we started a VSLA to save up money, we were 30 youths. However, some youths thought the group was formed to make money and when it didn’t come, 4 of them dropped out and they regret it.” He adds that the VSLA has been an integral part of his life because he can borrow whenever he has an emergency and pay back.
Kinyera is very certain of his future plans and he is no longer scared like before about the unemployment crisis among the youths lately. “To me, unemployment is no longer an issue. If I don’t get a job after studies, I am not scared because I will be earning from my skills and I will be able to live a good life.” He also attributes the value of friendships and networking he has made at the training centre to be of help going forward. Moses Kinyera’s goal for now is opening a shop in Bungatira and doing business.