Nwoya Skills Hub

Nwoya Skills Hub (NSH) is a skills training center that offers apprenticeship vocational skills, ICT training, Cottage manufacturing and business incubation services to unemployed young people, as launch pad for economic empowerment. The center’s program is tailored to target and respond to the plight of out of school and unemployed youth in the region who are largely wallowing in abject poverty. The choice of Nwoya as the project location was informed by the high prevalence of poverty amongst the community that is yet to fully economically recover from the traumatizing impacts of armed insurgency. A disproportionate segment of youth in the project area are trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, which largely limits their ability to acquire qualifications and gain skills necessary to get jobs. The country in general is experiencing an unprecedented hike in youth unemployment. Lately, the labour market is saturated with a high number of graduates who cannot find jobs after graduation. This is largely because of a mismatch between the skills employers want, and the skills the graduates acquire at academic universities. Academic institutions are churning out more of job seekers than job creators. NSH training equally offers an opportunity for such graduates to retool in new fields where the products or services rendered have ready demand. Skills in areas such as agri-processing, cottage manufacturing and other value addition activities unlocks new opportunities for the trainees, taking advantage of cheaply available raw materials.