Vocational Training and Tailoring Shop Program

The Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Bweyale, Uganda, is a UNHCR managed refugee settlement that provides shelter, land, and support for more than 100,000 people. They are comprised of refugees from Kenya, DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan. RMF has partnered with UNHCR in supporting Kiryandango Refugee Settlement, the surrounding community of Bweyale, and the greater Kiryandongo District (an additional 266,197 people) with health care, education, and vocational training since 2008.

This initiative focuses specifically on RMF’s role in the Vocational Training and Tailoring Shop Program.

In April 2011, RMF initiated the Panyadoli Vocational Training Institute (PVTI) at the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement after being presented by the refugee community with issues surrounding the lack of skills and vocational training for students graduating from the settlement high school.

After researching which skills would provide the quickest earning opportunities and the most efficient economic investment requirements for RMF, we narrowed the programs down to:

• Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy
• Bricklaying and Concrete Practice
• Carpentry and Joinery
• Tailoring and Garment Cutting

Programs

Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy:
Students learn,

• Acceptable safety measures when dealing with clients as well as health hazards
• Customer service policies and how to demonstrate hospitality
• Hairdressing techniques

Bricklaying and Concrete Practice:
Students learn,

• Safety and health hazards in work environments
• Skills to use basic hand tools as well as how to take care of their tools
• Concrete and mortar (how to identify and apply materials)
• Basic types of walls and the process of application

Carpentry and Joinery:
Students learn,

• Safety and health risks in their working environments, including caring for and storing tools and equipment
• Different types of timber and correct storage practices
• To use different types of hand tools and teaching measurements
• Different types of joints used in wood making and how to use them

Tailoring and Garment Cutting:
Students learn,

• Safety and health hazards
• To identity and use different types of tools and maintain their tools
• To use a sewing machine
• Different materials and textiles
• Construction techniques

Project Goals

• To train the refugees with relevant vocational training skills
• To prepare the refugees for the work world with entrepreneurial skills for both employment and self-employment
• To prepare refugees with basic skills that they shall use for nation building when returning to their home country

RMF is providing skills training for South Sudanese Refugees to enable them to become self-reliant now as well as when they return to South Sudan.

Funding needed to:

• Open a hairdressing shop in Bweyale Trading Center. This will help students in training to do their field work, further developing their skills, and it will also help advertise the services RMF delivers to the young generation
• Open a carpentry shop in Bweyale Trading Center. This will help students in training to do their field work, advertise the services RMF delivers to the young generation, and generate income for the institute.
• Meet the overwhelming needs and demands that communities at the camp bring to RMF as RMF Uganda does not have enough funds to resolve every problem presented.

Language barriers still exist at the Vocational Training Institute. Those who do not know English also want to join the program, but it is too difficult to communicate with them.

After Graduation

The next step of this program is financial assistance and guidance to PVTI graduates on their journey to self-sufficiency, while also contributing back to the program.

• Graduates are assisted in establishing their own businesses (procurement of materials and work space)
• Graduates will participate in a giving back program after three months of successful operation in which they will donate 10% of monthly profits to the Panyadoli Vocational Institute.

In this way, we hope to foster a cycle of improved economic stability and opportunity in the region.