Job creation

'Transition from school to work' project

This year we are starting a new project in collaboration with the Belgian Province of East Flanders, namely: “Transition from school to work. Phase 1: productive activities (program 2019-2021). Vocational education, young people with intellectual disabilities. "

The project was favorably assessed by the Province: "project with a clear goal and vision to integrate young people with disabilities into the normal work field."

In 2019 we will be working with the young people especially on cooking traditional Ugandan dishes and gardening.

For gardening, we are entering into a partnership with an external horticultural company: Mbabazi Ronald comes to work one morning (two hours) every week with our gardening teacher Immaculate and five youngsters with intellectual disabilities. He will also help with the planning of the garden.

The responsible teacher for cooking is Apophia.

The project is managed by Mercy (manager of WORK UG) with the help of Josephine.

Participants transition project

The team discussed the philosophy of the project, the activities to be set up in 2019 and the results to be achieved. A first meeting with all people involved - students, gardening and cooking skills trainers, external collaborator Owembabazi Ronald and the project management - took place in April.

Project transition from school to work (mission 13 in 2019)

Preparing traditional dishes

I held discussions with the gardener, Immaculate, the external gardening consultant, Ronald and the cook, Apophia, about the progress of the "Transition from school to work project". This project is supported by the Province of East Flanders and focuses on teaching skills related to gardening and cooking.

With Mercy and Josephine, the project leader and her assistant, I look at the reporting on the transition project. This week we are working on the profiles of the 5 students involved and their individual action plans.

Gardening

To evaluate the progress made by the students, we fill in the "Gardening skills questionnaire" and the "Cooking skills questionnaire" together with the teachers and the students.

Information about the progress of the transition project can be found in the quarterly reports of PROUD Uganda and in the minutes of meetings with the parents.

To engage the students well, there are individual conversations, group discussions and photo albums. Each participant keeps an album with photos of activities in the kitchen, the garden and others e.g. meetings, pick up a report, etc.

Photo albums transition project

By Pele

TRADITIONAL COOKING  TRADITIONAL COOKING  TRADITIONAL COOKING

Sarah preparing groundnuts

Sarah cooking

Sarah is a student of group 3 at Proud Uganda. She feels happy when she finds herself in the kitchen cooking. When it’s her time on the timetable to be in the kitchen to prepare food she is all the time smiling. She says am the “boss”. She enjoys preparing groundnuts and rice.

GARDENING  GARDENING  GARDENING  GARDENING  GARDENING  GARDENING


Praise grows sweet potatoes

                                                         Sweet potatoes and pumpkin

At WORK Uganda last year 2019 the children of group 2 were asked to make the choices of the crops they like to grow in their personal garden. Every child gave the choice of the crops and they were given each a plot where to plant. And one of the children who is Ayebare Praise chose to grow sweet potatoes. She grew them with the guide from her skills trainer and now they are ready to harvest. The sweet potatoes from the garden of Praise are very sweet other children comments.

By Kiki

Pumpkins harvested at PROUD Village

Pumpkin plants are grown at Proud Village by the children together with their skills trainers.

They take care of the pumpkin plants such as weeding together with their skills trainer Wednesday Immaculate. 

When the pumpkin fruits start developing the skills trainer guides the children to cover them with pumpkin leaves to avoid being destroyed by sunshine. 

When the pumpkin fruit becomes big the skills trainer harvests it by hand picking and is taken to the kitchen for the children to eat. The children like enjoying eating the pumpkins which are cooked together with the dry beans.

Harvesting sukumawiki

Harvesting sukumawiki

At Proud Uganda sukumawiki is grown in the garden and it yields much. Ignitious and Sarah like harvesting the sukumawiki. Sukumawiki is a leafy vegetable and it’s enrich with vitamin A. This sukumawiki also improves on the balanced diet of the children of the project. Therefore children at the project are healthy due to the fact that they feed on vegetables. The project not only grows sukumawiki but also a variety of other vegetables such as broccoli, cabbages, cauliflowers, spinach, black night shed and many others.

By Kiki

Visit to the First national skills fair

The "First national skills fair" took place at UMA showground in Lugogo, Kampala on 7th till 9th of May 2019. Since teaching skills is the main task of PROUD UG and WORK UG, we could not miss this scholarship.

We went there to listen to the presentations and were not disappointed. Erwin De Wandel, Head of the Belgian cooperation in Uganda, finished his speech saying: “It is not only about creating jobs, but about creating decent jobs leading to decent lives. It's about lives of men and women, leaving no one behind, nor the vulnerable or the disabled.”

The PROUD project works in that line. We see participating in fully-fledged economic activities and environments as the best strategy to value people with intellectual disabilities.

In the margin of the "skills fair" we also visited the "Uganda Private Sector Foundation" and more specifically the offices of the "Skills development facility". SDF sponsors skills training for various categories of workers.