
In just two years, the Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village has empowered underprivileged young people in Nebbi with diverse agricultural skills in crop growing, grape farming and winemaking, beekeeping and tree planting. Many more have benefitted from skills training opportunities in the areas of small-scale businesses, agriculture, carpentry and mechanics among others. With mindsets changing and young people becoming more self-reliant, the future can only be brighter.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic many young people have lost their jobs and other sources of livelihood. Many of those who had migrated to the urban centres have returned to their villages thereby increasing the burden on their already poor and struggling families. With no farmlands to engage in agriculture, their return home only spells doom since they sold off their land to raise the money to go to find work in the larger towns.
This is the kind of situation that the Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village (RYEV) has been working to change in Nebbi district in the Northern-Western region of Uganda, since April 2018. Started by three passionate social scientists committed to youth empowerment; Odongo Innocent, Opio Washington and Ocen Eugene; together with Ovurutho Emmanuel, a Social worker, and under the guidance of Dr Pantenius Christian and Mrs Akao Grace, former employees of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UN-FAO) and African Union (AU) respectively, the non-profit community organization was officially registered in December 2019.
Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village, deriving its name from the ‘rainbow’ and which is regarded as a sign of hope, works to sustainably enhance socio-economic capacities of underprivileged young people to secure better livelihoods, build self-confidence and promote self-reliance. They provide empowerment and skills training for young people in the areas of small-scale businesses, agriculture, carpentry and mechanics among others. RYEV envisages empowered independent, skilled, productive, accountable and self-sustaining young Africans who can meaningfully contribute to the development of their communities and nations. RYEV’s projects have a special component of providing support to disabled young people and the girl child, especially child mothers.
The major economic activity in Nebbi and the larger West Nile region is agriculture, with Arabica coffee grown in the areas of Zombo while fishing goes on in Pakwach. Access to basic services such as schools, hospitals and places of worship is limited as the area is generally characterized by high poverty levels and poor-quality infrastructure. Many girls drop out of school as a result of teenage pregnancies.
Agriculture is Cool
In just two years, the Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village has empowered underprivileged young people in Nebbi with diverse agricultural skills in crop growing, grape farming and winemaking, beekeeping and tree planting. Many more have benefitted from skills training opportunities in the areas of small-scale businesses, agriculture, carpentry and mechanics among others. With mindsets changing and young people becoming more self-reliant, the future can only be brighter.
Through the three-acre grape farming and winemaking project, many young people have acquired skills they never imagined they could have and earned income to sustain themselves. Young school dropouts are being engaged in winemaking using grapes from their vineyard. Many of them now even own their small vineyards.
In partnership with the Nebbi Area Cooperative Enterprise (NACE), the youth have received training and beehives from which they now make, purify, package and sell honey, wax candles and smearing oils which have a ready market in the region. This has further improved their incomes and contributed to a reduction in the rates of crime and prostitution in the area.
RYEV also managed to obtain a tractor under the Government of Uganda’s NAADS programme that they are now able to hire out at a subsidized fee of approximately twenty dollars ($20) per acre to help promote farming among the youth. Young people who cannot afford fees to hire the tractor are given the ploughing services on credit and pay after harvesting and selling their produce. For young women who are interested in crop farming, the tractor is provided at a discount rate of ten dollars ($10) per acre of land ploughed. This is done to encourage these young women to be financially independent since many of them in this area are the breadwinners of their families.
Working alongside NACE, RYEV has begun implementing new irrigation technologies to promote and improve vegetable production in the region as a way of enhancing local food security through all-year-round food production and income generation.
RYEV is also promoting environmental conservation by encouraging young people to plant trees. Using a five acres piece of land it acquired to create a model farm, RYEV is leading by example. They have so far planted over 1,800 Eucalyptus trees to encourage the young people and are now looking to acquire more land where they will set up the tree nursery to raise seedlings that will be given to the youth free of charge.
In helping to promote resilience as a result of the disruption of livelihood brought about by COVID-19, RYEV has enrolled some of Nebbi’s young returnees into its skills training programme to enable them to acquire other skills they can use to earn a meaningful income during and after this critical period.
Having all suffered joblessness themselves, Innocent, Washington, Eugene and Emmanuel are changing mindsets by encouraging young people not to despise any income-generating activities. They hope that they can deter the many young people in the area from leaving their homes and migrating to urban areas like the capital city, Kampala, to do odd jobs or engage in criminal activities, and shift their focus to becoming job creators rather than job seekers.
Investing in Vocational Skills Training
Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village has a long term project of acquiring land to set up a fully-fledged and well-equipped Youth Empowerment Centre that will offer vocational skills training to unemployed young people in different income-generating activities such as carpentry, motor vehicle and motorcycle repair and maintenance, tailoring, horticulture, art and design, and catering. The youth centre will also be equipped with accommodation facilities for volunteers and sports facilities to help promote talent development. Additionally, the centre will also have a fully functional and equipped health facility to provide membership-based community healthcare services and youth-friendly services such as reproductive health, guidance and counselling to teenage mothers, provision of family planning services including male circumcision among others.
To help them meet the growing demand for skilled professionals, RYEV is also looking at attracting both national and international volunteers with different skills, knowledge and experiences to help contribute to the skills development of the young people.
With many strides made in just a couple of months, the future for the West Nile Region-based organization is bright. To learn more about the work of RYEV and how you can support them, write to P.O. Box 288 Nebbi, Uganda or email rainbowyouthemp@gmail.com. You can also call Tel: +256 392 998 099 or WhatsApp any of these numbers +256 771 806 927, +33 751 594 028 or +256 772 692 027. Follow them on Facebook as Rainbow Youth Empowerment Village and Twitter as @RyevOrg. You can also reach out directly to the Programme Manager, Ocen Eugene at oceneugene91@gmail.com.
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This story was written pro bono by Nelson Opany as part of his Communications Volunteering Series during the COVID-19 public health emergency to give a spotlight to grassroots organizations creating positive change in communities across Africa. Nelson is a Public Relations and Communications Management professional and a Scout with a passion for volunteering. (nelochop@gmail.com). Additional editing by Ray Saunders, an Information and Knowledge Management consultant based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Innocent Odongo
11/06/2020Agriculture is a way to go for Africa’s self sustainence and development. Young African need to be empowered in this area in order to diversifying the available options before them because you youth tends to look at Agriculture as a traditional way of life yet it presents a greater opportunity for them.
Thanks Comrade Nelson for amplifying this community based initiative.
admin
16/06/2020Africa’s growth and development will be determined greatly by how we use our farms – to feed our people and to unlock the massive agribusiness entrepreneurial opportunities that abound. Glad to see Ugandan youth taking a lead in their community.
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24/07/2020[…] Read more at: nelsonopany.com/diversifying-options-for-youth-through-agriculture-and-skills-training […]