Youths urged to organize themselves in groups to benefit from Youth Livelihood Program

Youth Livelihood Program (YLP) is a government financed program that targets to support the poor and unemployed youths in all the districts of Uganda. The Program aims at poverty eradication and employed creation among the youths.

“The project was introduced by Government to support youths with funds/start up capital for skills development and job creation by starting their own projects to generate income and eradicate poverty. Uganda has implemented a number of programs aiming at creating employment specifically for youths that can enable them live in a successful environment and create jobs for themselves basing on funds, skills and requisite knowledge from those programs since the highest percentage of youths are unemployed” .Said Mr. Mugisha David the Kabarole district community development officer (DCDO) during the radio talkshow on KRC on 2^nd / 8/2018.

David added, the funds are advanced to the Youth livelihood groups with a minimum number of 15 members and they are supposed to be from the same village for easy monitoring and supervision.

“The challenges affecting Youth livelihood program in Kabarole district are mainly mismanagement of funds which has been a threat for the past 2 years. This has contributed a lot in failing youth projects because sometimes youth plan for project A but when they receive funds they opt for project B which was not fully researched and planned for hence causing shortages and in the end result failure by the group to pay back the funds to be accessed by other groups”. Said Cris Aliganyira, the Kabarole district youth chairperson.

During the radio talkshow the panelists recommended that as Kabarole district more youth groups should be encouraged to apply for funds and more supervision should be done on a monthly basis.

They further recommended that group members should be reduced to the minimum of 6 members so that the funds they allocate to those groups can create an impact towards development and this program can be successful through engaging sub county officials like chiefs, security officials, LCI chairpersons, sub county youth leaders among others to supervise youth projects the projects on ground.

All these happened on KRC Fm a local radio station in Fort Portal where discussions on existing policies and their applicability in Uganda are discussed every Wednesday 8:00pm-10:00pm on ‘Manya Ekiragiro Kyawe’ weekly program supported by ToroDev.

During the two hours live discussion, more than 30 people called in and this is what they had to say;  ‘’The program should consider all youths not only the poor this will help all youths to benefit”, said Moses a caller from Kyangabukama, Kyenjonjo district.

“The project coordinators should always release finances early to enable groups to plan early and engage in their projects in time”. Said Sengendo Tadeo from Kanara, Ntoroko district.

“Supervision of groups should be increased so that money received is not diverted to other activities this will help groups on performance of groups and sustainability”. Said KK Francis from Bukuku, Kabarole district.

We take this opportunity to thank SIDA, NED, SPIDER, CIPESA & all our development partners for the financial and technical support.

.