Story by Osuta Yusuf.
Maracha District – Driwaru Jennifer Foundation (DJF), which is a Community-Based Organization (CBO) established in 2023 with an emphasis on skilling the vulnerable young people who drop out of schools due to Fees and other challenges, has on Tuesday, 17 December 2024 trained over 100 Youths and adults, both Male and Female on Shampoo manufacturing, packaging and selling.
The shampoo manufacturing training has been offered as additional training for Salon and Hairdressing students who underwent a 6-month course at the Foundation, and they are expected to be released to go home at the end of this week.
The Beneficiaries who have been selected from all the 19 Sub-counties of Maracha District have expressed optimism that the skills they acquired from the Driwaru Jennifer Foundation will improve their lives through self-employment.
One of the Salon and Hairdressing students in the Foundation, Juruga Angelo from Robu Parish, Oleba Sub-county in Maracha District, expressed his happiness for the 6 months of training he received both on sheving / plaiting hair of women and men.
“Most times people have a myth that plaiting women’s hair is something that can only be done by fellow women and yet we men if trained like this, we can break the barrier and do the same”, Juruga added as he irked that, he has already been booked by some women to plait their hair for this coming Festive season and the moment they graduate and he goes home, he will start his first job by plaiting the hair of those women who booked him.
Edomasi Josephine Comfort, one of the trainers at Driwaru Jennifer Foundation CBO described the students as disciplined and knowledgeably sharp learners throughout the 6 months duration they have been training them.
She, however, appealed to the general public to expunge the belief of viewing vocational courses as valueless training, and yet that is the biggest sector that creates jobs and employs many people around the world.
The proprietor of Gracious Cottage Enterprise Development Initiative Arua, Mr Opio John Paul, who was a facilitator at the Shampoo manufacturing, advised the graduates to be pioneers of the Driwaru Jennifer Foundation by championing her ambitions in modeling Maracha District.
He appealed to many other leaders in the WestNile region to join offering skills training for Young people in the region like how the woman MP Hon Driwaru Jennifer is doing.
Maracha District Woman MP Hon Driwaru Jennifer, who is also the founder of Driwaru Jennifer Foundation, during the address of the students after the training, pleaded to them not to make her put her resources and efforts to waste but they should use the skills to improve their lives and families.
“I expect some of you people to be job seekers for a short time”, the woman MP hinted as she explained that her main intention of starting up this Foundation was to improve literacy, reduce joblessness and alleviate poverty through producing job creators from the hands-on skills training at her institution for free.
While applauding President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni for initiating the Parish Development Model (PDM) program in Uganda, the woman MP advised some of the graduates who may not have the financial capacity to start, to jointly open Salons/business enterprises or should join Parish Development Model program to get some money as a startup capital.
With recent media reports saying there is only a 12% completion rate in P.7 out of the 100% of Children who join schools from P.1 in Maracha District, these kinds of Skilling Centres and CBOs like Driwaru Jennifer Foundation become the ultimate solution to leverage and prepare school dropouts to become potentials for the employment and job market.
Tailoring, Salon and Hairdressing, Art & Craft Academy, Welding & Metal Fabrication, Carpentry & Joinery, Graphics Design, Building, Bricklaying, and Concrete practice are some of the courses offered at the institute as the management is planning to include ICT as one of the courses they will offer from the next academic year 2025